The Lustgarten ("Pleasure Garden") is a park on Museum Island in central Berlin, near the site of the former Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace) of which it was originally a part. At various times in its history, the park has been used as a parade ground, a place for mass rallies and a public park.

The area of the Lustgarten was originally developed in the 16th century as a kitchen garden attached to the Palace, then the residence of the Elector of Brandenburg, the core of the later Kingdom of Prussia. After the devastation of Germany during the Thirty Years War, Berlin was redeveloped by Friedrich Wilhelm (the Great Elector) and his Dutch wife, Luise Henriette of Nassau. It was Luise, with the assistance of a military engineer Johann Mauritz and a landscape gardener Michael Hanff, who, in 1646, converted the former kitchen garden into a formal garden, with fountains and geometric paths, and gave it its current name.

In 1713, Friedrich Wilhelm I became King of Prussia and set about converting Prussia into a militarised state. He ripped out his grandmother's garden and converted the Lustgarten into a sand-covered parade ground: Pariser Platz near the Brandenburg Gate and Leipziger Platz were also laid out as parade grounds at this time. In 1790, Friedrich Wilhelm II allowed the Lustgarten to be turned back into a park, but during French occupation of Berlin in 1806 Napoleon again drilled troops there.

Russell Gordon Napier (28 November 1910 – 19 August 1974) was an Australian actor.

Russell Napier was born in Perth, Western Australia. Originally a lawyer, Napier was active as an actor from 1947 to 1974, playing both comedic and dramatic roles in both cinema and television. Notably, he starred in a live BBC television production of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine in 1949; still photographs of this production exist, but no actual footage.

He was the most frequent star of the Scotland Yard series of mystery movies which ran from 1953 to 1961, playing Detective Superintendent Duggan in thirteen films. Napier also played Duggan in the American Broadcasting Company anthology television series, Scotland Yard, which aired beginning in 1957 in the United States.,

He was the commentator of the official 1962 TV documentary Sound an Alarm, about the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation. He died in London, England.

Edgar Marcus Lustgarten (born 3 May 1907, Manchester, Lancashire, England, died on 15 December 1978) was a British broadcaster and noted crime writer.

His books included crime fiction, but most were accounts of true-life criminal cases. The legal justice system and courtroom procedures were his main interests and his writings reflect this. He also wrote numerous articles for newspapers and presented the radio series Advocate Extraordinary. He used to say that he had no schedules, writing everywhere any time, on bars, on cars and while walking by the streets.

He is most widely remembered for hosting the filmed crime series Scotland Yard and The Scales of Justice in the 1950s and 1960s, filmed at Merton Park Studios, London, SW19. One of those programmes, Scotland Yard was broadcast beginning on 17 November 1957, on the American Broadcasting Company in the United States.

Lustgarten died at the Marylebone Library while reading The Spectator. In the decade following his death, Lustgarten briefly ascended into the realm of pop culture when his inimitable voice was heard in dance music. Samples of him reading from "Death on the Crumbles" were used in the Australian band "Severed Heads" 1984 hit song "Dead Eyes Opened". His works are still used as introductory readings in several law schools in different countries because of their accuracy on the atmosphere of trials and attorneys' behaviour. He was famously mimicked as the Narrator in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Stanley Baxter (born 24 May 1926) is an award winning Scottish actor and impressionist, best known for his highly popular British television comedy shows. In a long career he has worked with some highly celebrated colleagues in a wide range of productions in radio, theatre, television and film.

The son of an insurance manager, Baxter was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was educated at Hillhead High School, Glasgow, and schooled for the stage by his mother. He began his career as a child actor in the Scottish edition of the BBC's Children's Hour. He developed his performing skills further during his National Service with the Combined Services Entertainment unit, working alongside comedy actor Kenneth Williams, film director John Schlesinger and dramatist Peter Nichols, who used the experience as the basis for his play Privates on Parade.

After the war Baxter returned to Glasgow taking to the stage for three years at Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre. Following success on the radio with Jimmy Logan, Howard & Wyndham Ltd invited him to star in pantomime at the Theatre Royal Glasgow followed by the Half Past Eight Shows, and their successors the Five Past Eight Shows at the Alhambra Theatre Glasgow. His exacting and demanding nature gave Scotland some of its most glittering pantomimes and Baxter nurtured the stage careers of Alyson McInnes and John Ramage. Baxter remained a great favourite on the Scottish pantomime circuit up until his retirement in 1992, starring with popular Scottish stars, Jimmy Logan and Una McLean. He moved to London to work in television in 1959. In 1969 he performed in the original production of Joe Orton's then controversial farce What The Butler Saw at the Queen's Theatre in the West End with Sir Ralph Richardson, Coral Browne and Hayward Morse.

Abrahm Simon Lustgarten is an environmental reporter for ProPublica.

He graduated from Cornell University with a BS in anthropology, and from Columbia University with a MA in journalism. He was a staff writer for Fortune magazine, and adjunct professor at the University of Oregon. His work has appeared in The New York Times,The Washington Post,Mother Jones,Esquire,Salon,Scientific American.