Hotel Concorde Berlin Blog

Nightlife in Berlin: More than just a Clubber’s Paradise

Berlin may be famous for its parties, but the city has so much more to offer at night besides clubs and bars. This is a city where the biggest bookshop, Dussmann, stays open until midnight almost every day; where you can climb to the top of the parliamentary building after supper (registration is required); explore behind the scenes at the State Opera House after a performance; or play crazy golf into the night in a glow-in-the-dark cellar at Schwarzlicht Minigolf.

Nach(t)führung at the State Oper House in Berlin (c)Max Lautenschläger

Berlin always seems to have had an aversion to sleep. Back in the ‘Roaring Twenties’, the city’s reputation for nihilistic excess and unparalleled debauchery was known the world over. An example of a typically action-packed, seemingly endless Berlin night in the Weimar Republic can be found in the first 400 pages of Hans Fallada’s epic Wolf Amongst Wolves. Back then, such was the popularity of all-night revelry, that the city’s Admiral’s Palace (now a theatre) was home to a 24-hour bathhouse – which was the essential last port of call after a long night out.

The Admiral's Palace when it was still used as a 24-hour bath house (c)Admiralspalast

For journalist and author Joseph Roth, writing in the 1920s, the steam baths were “the ‘clean break’ between the bacchanals of the night and the day’s gainful employment,” and without them, the city’s rowdy nightlife would have been almost impossible to sustain. The baths also attracted waifs and strays who had not managed to find, or could not afford, a hotel room for the night, and it was not unusual to see bathers arrive with a suitcase.

The Admiral's Palace when it was still used as a 24-hour bath house (c)Admiralspalast