Review: DER BERG, DEN ES NICHT GIBT
by Marinell Haegelin

Leonid Kharlamov, Michael Steinhauser, Germany 2021

The title (The Mountain That Doesn’t Exist) is a giveaway; it’s an unorthodox documentary. The co-directors Leonid Kharlamov and Michael Steinhauser delve into a street’s name change in an infamous neighborhood in St. Pauli district. The “Berg,” an offshoot of the Reeperbahn, is a “party mile” chock-a-block full of whimsical cult-pubs and funky bars where party-going locals and tourists mix to have fun. Why “Berg” (mountain)? Hamburg’s primarily a flat city. Websites list many reasons, yet the reality is stranger.

In 1938, Hitler’s Nazis christened the street Hamburger Berg. Heinestrasse was named after the generous benefactor Salomon Heine, who arrived in Hamburg penniless, went into banking and acquired success and wealth. After Hamburg’s four-day Great Fire in 1842, his personal resources helped reconstruct the city. Subsequent to wife Betty’s death in 1837, Heine built the Israelite Hospital of Hamburg, and the street leading up to it was named, you guessed it, Heinestrasse. Fast-forward to the mid-1950s when a movement began to change Hamburger Berg back to Heinestrasse. The authorities dragged their feet—“it’s a long gone story.” A clandestine movement followed, and then the grassroots movement took root. But dig deep enough, as Kharlamov and Steinhauser did, and what you find may lead in a surprising direction.

What’s to like about this reflexive film essay, besides the subjectively creative storyline, is the overall quirky quality of its production values. The co-directors obviously did considerable research, plus acquiring engrossing archival material. Kharlamov is also credited with writing, cast, and voiceover, and Steinhauser with editing. The editing is fantastic: different visuals—some screened—are overlaid in some areas, as is the sound/music in multiple layers providing a cornucopia of sensual enjoyment.

Led by documentary filmmaker Rasmus Gerlach, the Q&A session was especially enlightening in view of its relevancy to topics/issues shown. Audiences learned about the politics involved, that Hamburg’s archives and libraries’ prolificacy was valuable, and how they couldn’t find a reason in their research for “berg” other than the area being a small hill. Incidentally, The Jewish/Israelite Hospital is now in the city’s Hamburg-Nord district.