Berliner Weisse

Until about the middle of the 19th century, Berlin was a small town. During the industrialization period (1850-1890), more and more people moved from rural areas to Berlin. Their large numbers advanced the city but also presented many problems. Between 1850 and 1870, the population of Berlin grew from 428,000 to 800,000 residents while the area of the city remained the same. By 1871, at the beginning of the German Empire, nearly a million people lived in Berlin and its suburbs after the incorporation of the districts of Wedding, Gesundbrunnen, and Moabit, as well as parts of Charlottenburg, Schöneberg, Tempelhof, and Rixdorf. This led to very cramped and socially unsustainable living conditions. Alongside the magnificent townhouses, the typical Berlin tenement buildings emerged. Twice a year, on April 1 and October 1, countless Berliners moved out of their apartments, loaded down with all imaginable belongings: it was moving day in Berlin. Some could now afford a better apartment than their previous one. However, many had to move into dark and airless basements or found no accommodation at all. The tailor Wilhelm Zerbe and his family are among the lucky ones who will move from their dreary cellar into a light-filled apartment in the first backyard. A stroke of luck brought to them by their eldest son Reinhold, who has a good position with a baron. What Reinhold does not know is that it is precisely the apartment from which his fiancée Guste must move out with her father, a retired sergeant major, and the whole family. However, the young couple is determined to resist the impending turmoil of family conflicts and external adversities and to seek their shared happiness.