Investigations

Andrew Callaghan entered Berghain in a Channel 5 culture series

Germany added the city's techno culture to its nationwide intangible heritage list in March 2024.

In Berlin, Andrew Callaghan spent a weekend between street parades and the Berghain nightclub for the third installment of a German culture series on Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan. He posted the report on Oct. 30, 2026.

Empty factories and power plants across former East Berlin became dance venues after the wall fell in 1989, and techno spread from Detroit and Chicago into those bunkers and warehouses. In March 2024, Germany's culture ministers added Berlin techno culture to the nationwide inventory of intangible cultural heritage, alongside five other living traditions.

Callaghan filmed outside two July parades that bookend rival scenes. Interview subjects described the first as an anti-capitalist street protest and the second, Rave the Planet, as the successor to the Love Parade and a more commercial draw for expats. The Rave the Planet organizer told the crew the event drew roughly 500,000 dancers.

Clubgoers said marathon parties run on amphetamines, ketamine, and a stimulant they called mephedrone, and that adulterated batches had lately sent some users into psychosis. Several people said Berlin normalized open drug use in ways that felt alien to Americans worried about fentanyl.

Berlin clubs also enforce strict bans on phones and cameras, a policy interview subjects traced to East Germany's Stasi surveillance and early venues such as Tresor. At Berghain, staff cover guest cameras with stickers at the door.

Berghain occupies a former power plant and built its reputation on long techno sets, queer nightlife, and a selective door policy that turned away tourists, poorly dressed guests, and content creators hunting footage. Callaghan said he met influencers outside who could not find any club that would let them film.

After an earlier rejection, Callaghan and a producer bought fetish wear at a Berlin shop so their outfits would not read as costumes. They returned on a Sunday morning, passed the door, and surrendered their phones to the sticker policy. Staff told him he would not get usable content inside.

Callaghan did not roll cameras in the club. The episode used animated recreations for interior scenes he described, including naked bartenders, open drug use on the floor, and dark rooms where guests seek anonymous contact.

Interview subjects said straight men often misread the door and that Berghain functions primarily as a queer club. Bouncers told one queued guest who tried to rush past that the club was private space and compared an uninvited entry to walking into a stranger's home.

Source video: Berlin Streets