Twenty five years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wunderground asks the question “where are they now?” focusing on the former East Berlin border guards who are now running security in Berlin’s most exclusive nightclub, Berghain.
Like border crossings on the Berlin Wall during the post-war Soviet era, Berghain’s doors are known for being some of the toughest and most security conscious thresholds on the continent.
“It’s a well know fact that it is extremely hard to gain entry into Berghain,” explained chief of security and former Border Troop of the German Democratic Republic, Lars Schmidt. “Not quite as hard as it would have been to cross the border between East and West Berlin but still a lot harder than it is to get into other, less cool, nightclubs.”
Berghain’s close proximity to the old East-West border made the prospect of running security in the nightclub an attractive one for Schmidt and his band of former Border Troops. “I’ll be honest, finding work after the wall came down was tough for Border Troops, people from both sides of the city seen us as the enemy and it was a tough time for all of us.”
“I didn’t know what to do, at first I just walked around aimlessly asking people for their documents,” continued Schmidt. “That was ok for the first few years but after a while people stopped being scared of my uniform and just started telling me to fuck off. It was a low point for me and the start of a pretty dark chapter in my life.”
“Then in 2003 Berghain came along with its super strict door policy and I knew straight away that I’d found my second calling in life.”
“I obviously had to adapt to a less heavy handed form of security,” revealed Schmidt. “Interrogations and beatings were replaced with a quick frisk and visual inspection but, at the end of the day, nine times out of ten we’re going to turn you away so it really wasn’t all that hard to get back into the swing of things.”
“I’m very proud of the fact that we run such a tight and exclusive door here at Berghain, there are a thousand reasons why you won’t get in, anything from being foreign to us just not liking the look of you is enough for us to turn you away,” he continued grinning smugly from ear to ear. “The power of ruining someone’s night, or life, by saying ‘no, you’re not getting through’ really makes me feel great and reminds me of the glorious wonder that was a communist regime.”
There have been a number of other links between the former German Democratic Republic regime and Germany’s vibrant electronic music scene, including recent evidence which emerged naming trance aficionado Paul van Dyk as a high ranking Stasi officer and a failed plot by Sven Väth to smuggle two hundred East Berlin babies across the border into the West.
