Berlin, August 23rd, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – “Graffiti is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view.” This is what Wikipedia tells us about this phenomenon. To some it is an art form, to others an annoyance. As we all know Berlin is full of graffiti – and it’s usually the ugly kind.
Sure, some of the graffiti wall at Mauerpark, the East Side Gallery and certain official graffiti walls is colorful and beautiful. Yes, there is art on some walls in Berlin. But most is uneccessary, ugly scribbling. It is illegal and removing it is expensive.
A nice, freshly renovated building in Berlin won’t last five minutes until some self-proclaimed graffiti “artist” comes along with his color spray and spoils it. While a brand new S-Bahn train is parked somewhere on the tracks, some schmock will cause a lot of damage by spraying all over it.
Criminal Mischief
No, it’s neither funny nor cool. Scribbling “peace” on a wall does not change a thing in this world. Nor does it make you a revolutionary hero. If you feel like being creative, spray on an official graffiti wall or become an actual artist and get hired for legal and artsy graffiti projects.
Florian Schoenrock, a lawyer and expert in the field of graffiti offenses who defends sprayers in courts, was just interviewed by the public broadcaster RBB. He says, sprayers will be prosecuted for criminal mischief. Minors who get caught spraying walls for the first time might only be forced to take part in a serious discussion which involves their parents, the police and social workers.
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Adults who give in to their inner need to make Berlin uglier by spraying a tiny graffiti on a wall will be fined up to 800 Euro, according to Schoenrock. The amount they have to pay grows substantially for bigger graffitis or for damaging trains.
Getting Caught
Nowadays, there are cameras everywhere. And there are specialized investigators. Getting caught is more likely than it might seem. Sprayers who have been caught before or whose “art work” has been spotted all over their neighborhood, will get into trouble. The prosecution will be all over them, even in cases in which the owner of the building they damaged does not want them to be charged.
“Graffiti is prosecuted very harshly in Berlin, compared to other cities”, Schoenrock says in the same RBB interview. At the same time, he argues against closures of legal graffiti walls, including North Side Gallery at Nordbahnhof station. According to him, Berlin needs places of this kind, where graffiti is legal, also because some tourists come here to see it.
The graffiti wall at Mauerpark is a good place. Here, sprayers may rehearse. Some actually create beautiful art there, others combine art with relevant political messages. A few years back, someone sprayed a portrait of George Floyd on that wall, along with his last words: “I can’t breathe”, after he was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25th, 2020.
But this does not change the fact that most of the graffiti in Berlin is ugly, unnecessary, illegal and expensive. To hell with all the graffiti. Berlin would be more beautiful without the scribbling on every single apartment block or wall.
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