Cosmopolitan UK - 04.2020

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t’s 4pm on a
Saturday afternoon.
Clouds of weed
surround me, the
smoke catching
in my throat.
I’ve already been
standing for an
hour and I have
around three more
hours of waiting
ahead of me. It
could be longer
t. I don’t dare ask.

By 7pm, as the sky turns


pink, descending into night,


everyone around me has


fallen silent. We are united


by one mission – the door


in front of us. The silence


is punctuated by a woman


with an afro bob and


purple lipstick ordering


those closest to her to


keep smiling or they’ll be


rejected. I am afraid that


when we eventually get


close to her, she will simply


look us up and down and


say “no”. That all this waiting


is, ultimately, pointless.


I’m in the queue for one of


the world’s hardest-to-get-


into clubs. This woman


is the bouncer who decides


which of us succeeds and


who goes home.


Party people


Two months later, it’s 1am,


and I’m standing in front


of an iconic club, only this


time I’m wearing a bullet-


proof vest. The only way


for me to find out the


answer to that much-


Googled question “how


exactly do you get into


Berlin’s superclubs?” was


to guard the doors myself.


When the Berlin Wall fell


in 1989 it marked a new


political beginning for


Germany. It also set off
a chain of events that led
to Berlin becoming the
clubbing capital of Europe:
the end of the divide
between the East and the
West created a new sound


  • and a new way to party

  • that brought everyone
    together. Week-long parties
    began to burgeon at full
    speed. Clubbing became a
    lifestyle, music a religion –
    and it garnered worldwide
    attention. Once The Wall
    fell, several East German
    businesses closed down,
    leading to soap factories
    and power plants being
    revamped into illegal
    clubs. Over the years these
    forbidden parties gave way
    to venues with permits – but
    many retained the grit that
    made them so special in the
    first place. Tourists flooded


to the city, and locals wanted
to keep the atmosphere
created sacred. Berlin’s
nightclub door policies got
so strict that they became
almost as famous as the
clubs themselves.

Today, endless online
forums detail what to say,
what to wear and how to
act in order to get in. The
bouncers have become
celebrities, with head
doorman of the club

Berghain, Sven Marquardt,
the man to impress (it’s
rumoured Berghain once
turned away Britney Spears
for wearing the wrong
shoes). Yet Berghain is just
one of a network of clubs
with strict door policies,
and although Marquardt
and his male colleagues are
the ones who dominate
newspaper columns and
documentaries, there’s a
group of women who wield
just as much power. They’re
super-secretive and their
world is hard to penetrate


  • it took over a month of
    club-hopping, day and
    night, to get to know them.
    Mostly I was shunned and
    told that journalists are not
    trusted until, with some
    persistence, a few party
    promoters took me aside
    to whisper their names


“I began


to lose all


empathy. I


started work


pissed off”


Bouncer
Saskia has
“no” tattooed
on her palm
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