Just been reading through this... some interesting points made no doubt.
Always think about Berlin in the 70s/80s when it was the heroin capital of the world and you had rockstars moving there cos of the easy drugs but seemingly a kinda lawless and violent centre with junkie punks all over the shop, climbing in the toilet to steal your stuff - like in Cristiane F etc - and it's very attractive in a way, or the glamourised view we have is. I have a good friend in Germany, I guess he's in his 50s, and he loves that era but at the same time he readily admits it must have been pretty horrible... not sure if he actually said grim but that's no doubt what he meant.