Back from Berlin again

Just back from a wonderful, cold, engrossing and solitary week in Berlin, exploring locations which will feature in the next Clara Vine novel. One of the loveliest places I visited was Schwanenwerder, a tiny enclave at the tip of the Grunewald where the Goebbels’s had their home, not to mention Speer and a few others. You can see why the Nazis liked it – it’s a little peninsula that reaches into the Wannsee, surrounded with trees, and containing just a few, luxurious private villas. Just the place for a murder!  More accessible places to visit in Berlin are the Babelsberg studios – which have their own studio tour now – and the Einstein Cafe in Kurfurstenstrasse, which used to belong to the actress Henny Porten, banned from the screen by Goebbels because she refused to divorce her Jewish husband. It’s incredibly atmospheric. Don’t miss it.