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Kollwitzplatz is ground Zero for gentrification, say locals. It is, well was, the hub of Prenzlauer Berg. Tall, strident, multi-hued Prussian townhouses, albeit spraycanned and tagged at the bottom; structures largely kept intact despite the carpet bombing and east German rebuilding. Colonised by DDR refuseniks, artists, rebels, drop-outs, and the first place to gentrify when the wall came down with west Berliner artists, freethinkers and drop-outs fleeing here for cheap rents. As happens elsewhere, the artists leave and the yuppies move in.

Cheap rent? No longer. A month’s rent for a room on Worthestrasse will cost you about 600 euros, London prices, well, nearly – this is sort of Notting Hill, Chelsea and Greenwich Village all rolled into ein.

Kollwitz Platz and its environs are choc-full of chi-chi restaurants – Chinoise hot-pot or Thai spring roll anyone? Walk around this area, and plenty of Deutsche tourists do, and you notice more playgrounds than pubs, well, green squares and sandpits for das kinder. Prenzlauer Berg should be renamed Pramslauer Berg, it is full of mums  mitt kids – a pram is almost weapon of choice here, the area mocked in Berlin and Germany as one big kiddie town, as the shops around the streets attest; kiddie clothes, wooden toys, and the ubiquitous LGB BioMarkt – “organic food”!

Pramslauer Berg, i’m told variously, has the highest birth rate in Germany or Europe. Every other 30-something woman is pushing a pram, or cycling with a baby in tow, or in a basket. If they have no kids, then they are pregnant. If they are not pregnant, and it’s rare here, they stroll around, arm in arm with das boyfriend with a smile suggesting they are gonna get pregnant very soon. The men? They all looked tired.

Tim Berlin DDR, Berlin GDR, Berlin history, Berlin news and views, Berlin work, Prenzlauer Berg, apartments, berlin berlin, DDR, GDR, Kollwitz Platz, Kollwitzplatz, prams, Prenzlauer Berg, Worthestrasse