The writer and publicist Erich Kästner (1899-1974) achieved worldwide fame primarily through his children’s books. However, he began his career in the Weimar Republic with satirical, often socially critical articles and poems, which he began to write while still a student in Leipzig in order to finance his German studies. After completing his doctorate, Kästner moved to Berlin in 1927, where he published articles in various newspapers and magazines both under his own name and under several pseudonyms. His first book, the poetry collection Herz auf Taille, was published in 1928. A year later, his first children's book, Emil and the Detectives, was published and became an instant bestseller. Kästner, who made no secret of his anti-militarism and was politically close to the Social Democrats, was one of the authors whose books were burned by the National Socialists in 1933 for being “culturally Bolshevist.” Unlike many other intellectuals critical of the regime, however, he remained in Germany, where he survived the Nazi regime and the Second World War. This humorous poem from 1930 describes the confusion of rural visitors in the face of the pace and noise of modern urban life as epitomized by Potsdamer Platz, the transport hub in the heart of Berlin.