Germany's counter-culture

Alan Johnson presents a special despatch from Berlin, exploring the counterculture - the radical streak - in one of Europe's greatest cities.

Some places are lucky. Trouble doesn't come their way, and they're left to prosper quietly. But that hasn't been the case for Berlin. The city was virtually destroyed during the Second World War, and then cut in half all through the Cold War. Today, it's enjoying much better times - indeed some of its neighbourhoods are gentrifying rapidly.

It's a place with a particularly rich heritage of political and cultural radicalism, but which at times seems uneasy with itself.

Steve Evans says that the traumatic past has inevitably helped to shape its character. And among its traits is a tendency among some to take an alternative - even sometimes rather extreme - approach to life.