How long have you been working at the SPK, and what are your responsibilities?
I started as a research editor at the head office in January 2016 – and after around eight contract extensions, I’m still here. My role is correspondingly varied. Depending on the season, I oversee the editing of the SPK Annual Report or produce articles for the SPK online magazine, the SPK social media channels, the SPK newsletter and various other writing and editorial tasks.
What is your favourite spot in the SPK, and what do you most enjoy doing there?
When I – which has actually become less common since the pandemic – sit at my desk in the basement of the villa pondering my various writing tasks, my gaze wanders to the villa garden for the sake of contemplation or, indeed, procrastination. There is plenty to see there: the changing seasons in the canopy – or lack thereof – of the trees, the cheeky nuthatch hanging upside down on the trunk, crows bathing in the birdbath, sensational great spotted woodpeckers, jays and starlings, a stray fox, and all around it the ‘Nazi Wall’, which the Reich Chancellor had built during his time as resident to enclose the illegal casino and Chinese embassy that the villa had once been.
Those turbulent times are a thing of the past; nowadays, the only thing wild is the noise of traffic, whilst the garden lies quiet. Only occasionally do you see colleagues on their lunch break sitting on the beer garden benches, tourists who have lost their way (Google had temporarily and mistakenly labelled the villa as the Neue Nationalgalerie), and my personal highlight – apart from the sensational preparations for the 2019 Raffaello summer party – is actually when the caretakers burn away the weeds on the paved path with a blowtorch.
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