Ooooh, they have such a longing, they want to go back: to Spandau. Sounds totally wrong? Sausage. The doctors are performing on Monday, June 6th in Berlin-Spandau – where it all began in the 80s. The concert in the citadel has long been sold out.

Doctors haven’t played at home for over 40 years. The Tagesspiegel newsletter for Berlin-Spandau quickly got advice from real experts from the district, such as reader Stephan Kauf. He took the doctors’ biography out of the cupboard and looked for passages from Spandau in the wing chair. Another reader sent a great video of the doctors from the Johannesstift. And Marvin Loßmann contributed an important detail to the citadel. Here are 10 quick short stories to get you in the mood for the doctors’ concert in Spandau on Monday.

1.) Rockstar from Schwarz-Weiß Spandau. In the 1960s, Bela B. joined the Black and White Spandau club in Spektefeld. However, the later rock star was not a good footballer: the child switched to judo.

2.) “Mr. Seegefelder”. That was the first nickname in the band because Bela B. lived there. His buddy Farin Urlaub was called “Mr. Senheimer” – that was his address in Frohnau. That’s what the two told us in the Tagesspiegel interview.

3.) Spandau tattoo. In 2003, Bela B. wanted to tattoo the letters “Spandau” on her stomach, but left it at the idea.

4.) high school. Bela B. attended the Carlo Schmid School on Lutoner Straße.

5.) Record store. Of course “Musicland” in Klosterstraße. “The shop was well stocked with punk and avant-garde,” said Bela B. once about the shop that everyone in Spandau knows. “The salesman became a fatherly friend to me.” This salesman still runs the shop: Ralf Rachner, 69. Here is my interview in the newsletter. The head of the music store still calls the rock star by his real name “Dirk”: “Dirk lived around the corner. He had started an apprenticeship as a decorator in the old town, over at Hertie. One day he came in with his band and sat there over there and didn’t look funny at all. ‘They didn’t take me on,’ he told me. Man, imagine if he’d stayed at Hertie and decorated shop windows today?!”

[Greetings from the Wild West! The complete Spandau newsletter is available from me at leute.tagesspiegel.de]

6.) Spandau in the 70s: “Spandau was a city in itself,” Bela B. once said. “In Haselhorst, the density of guest workers was as high as in Wedding. At the same time, Spandau was severely aging, which explains why there was so little entertainment for younger people. The streets were full of old people who kept shouting Nazi slogans at us teenagers. I was a target as a punk. A group of Hertha fans called Zyklon B came out of my corner. I preferred to avoid them.”

7.) Hertie in the old town. Bela began an apprenticeship as a window dresser in the department store in the pedestrian zone of Spandau’s old town. The department store is still standing, Bela works elsewhere.

8.) Your disco. There were two addresses in Wilhelmstadt: the disco with the escalator (“Jet Power” on Klosterstrasse) and the disco without an escalator (“Ballhaus” in Tiefwerder). The doctors chose B and preferred to dance to rock music at Dorfstrasse 5.

9.) The first Spandau concert. The doctors once played in Spandau – under the name of the previous band “Soilent Grün”. It was the first appearance together with Farin Urlaub. The concert took place in the Johannesstift in May 1981. Be sure to watch: Here is the YouTube video by Samuel L. Bronkowitz from the Johannesstift with old recordings from this year. Absolutely great, from minute 2.34.

10.) And was there a second Spandau concert? Yes. Namely at a punk festival in autumn 1981 in the open-air stage next to the citadel. Today a more bourgeois place of rebellion.

Reading tip: A lot of information comes from the great book “Die Ärzte. An oversized guinea pig eats the earth”, 2008, Schwarzkopf

And here is a quick overview of the topics that you will find in the current Spandau newsletter from the Tagesspiegel.

– Pentecost, holidays, Abi exams: Spandau’s DLRG boss talks about the start of the season and the lack of staff, warns against naive swimming in the cold Havel – and mourns the loss of one of the DLRG’s most deserving lifesavers in Spandau

– 25 million construction site: New sketch of Berlin’s water polo arena, details on the demolition of the day care center, noise protection and the giant newt

– Swimming pool Spandau-Süd: This is how much the sauna renovation costs

– 300 meters of trouble at Glienicker See: Update on the nasty cobblestones in Kladow

– “180,000 euros just gone”: frustration at the ailing forester’s house Gatow

– Millions for the Kladow sports field – and an emergency repair

– A new skate park for Siemensstadt – only where?

– Long-term debate about BVG bus lane: New information about bollards on Heerstraße

– Citizens’ initiative worried about parents’ taxis – and the new construction of the primary school in Staaken is postponed

– 25 years of puppet theater in the citadel

– Tiefwerder: Reader photographs water buffalo – and lots of tips for the long day of urban nature

– Photo art at Gatow airfield

– Guided tour for the blind in the citadel, cultural tip from the historic cellar

– Western town Haselhorst opens again

– Lots of neighborhood sports: Run of Spirit in the Johannesstift, great school campaign from TSV 1860 Spandau

– 10 mini stories about Spandau and the doctors for the concert in the citadel

The Tagesspiegel newsletter is available for all 12 Berlin districts and already has over 260,000 subscriptions. In it we inform you once a week in a bundled and compact way about what’s going on in your neighbourhood. We also often let readers have their say in the newsletter, after all nobody knows the neighborhood as well as the people who live there.