The Captain Berlin character was created by Buttgereit in the early 1980s and first appeared in his Super 8 short film CAPTAIN BERLIN - RETTER DER WELT (CAPTAIN BERLIN SAVES THE WORLD). In this film, Buttgereit himself plays Captain Berlin in a yellow jumpsuit with red briefs worn on the outside, capped off by a Spiderman mask and a repurposed flag worn as a cape. Clearly the product of a punk sensibility slamming head-on into a love of the 1960s "Batman" teevee show. The film is funny to watch but low on stuff like "production values," "plot," and "sense."