Kisch's miniatures of Berlin in the 1920s capture the accuracy of an outsider's perspective: What does a city look like that became the "capital of the Reich" only a few decades earlier, after a lost war, the flight of the emperor, in an unfamiliar republic? And how do people live in this vast city, where progress arrives late and with almost brutal force: with the Rummelsburg power plant, inflation, the world-improvement ideas of writers in the Café Grössenwahn, the police and their loot, with light bulbs and gramophones. But the reporter from Prague does not forget his compatriots in Rixdorf, the "Bohemian Village"; he visits butcher shops as well as the six-day races, spiritualist meetings, and matchmaking events – always with a notebook and open ears.