Photo Gallery 'Total Swabian Hate'
It may have begun as a joke, but with the adoption of slogans used by the Nazis, an ongoing feud pitting long-time Berliners against newer residents from southern Germany may have gone too far. On the morning of May 13, residents of Berlin's central Mitte district awoke to find a memorial bearing a bust of the 19th-century German philosopher Georg Hegel smeared with ketchup and currywurst, a local fast-food specialty, under a banner reading, "Expatriate Swabians."
In the past year, graffitied messages like, "Shoot Swabians" and "We are one people. You are another," have become commonplace in the city -- particularly in the former East Berlin working-class neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg. This one reads, "Swabians, piss off."
Germans from the southwestern region of Swabia -- with their hefty savings accounts and distinct accents -- have become the unfortunate poster children for the city's rapid gentrification.
In January, Wolfgang Thierse, a long-time Prenzlauer Berg resident as well as the vice president of Germany's federal parliament, had that he felt he'd become an "endangered species" in his neighborhood and complained that many local bakeries now use the Swabian terms for various pastries, instead of the Berlin ones. Here he's seen at a May Day worker's demonstration in 2010.
In retaliation, a group known by the name of "Free Swabylon" splattered spätzle -- a traditional Swabian egg noodle dish -- on a statue of the artist Käthe Kollwitz and called for an autonomous Swabian district in Berlin.
In the past months, the so-called "Swabian hate" became increasingly aggressive. In early May, "Don't buy from the Swabians" was spray-painted on the side of a Prenzlauer Berg building, an incitement to boycott that directly mirrors the slogan affixed to Jewish businesses in 1933 after Hitler came to power.
Here, a member of Hitler's SA attaches a sign reading, "Don't buy from the Jews" to the window of a Jewish-owned business in this undated archive photo.
Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, called the graffiti an "unthinkable action," for which there was "no justification." And Interior Minister Frank Henkel pointed out that the act is especially insensitive because there is a synagogue on the same street.
The so-called "Spätzle Wars" have even become the subject of a theater piece, titled "Swabian Hate -- Tuesdays are Hunting Season," which premiered on May 7 at the Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlauer Berg.
Another image of the show: As early as the 1970s, Berliners have had a habit of mocking newcomers from southern parts of Germany -- especially Swabians, who were easily identifiable by their accent and idiosyncratic dialect.
In the past decade, as Berlin's international profile has continuously grown, resentment against the influx of new residents has intensified, with locals complaining the city is being overly gentrified, sanitized and sapped of character.
An extreme case is Prenzlauer Berg (pictured), which transformed in less than two decades from communist worker's district to ragged bohemian playground to posh family enclave, complete with yoga studios, preschools and organic cafes.
