Berlin: Køpiplatz resquatted. We are here to reclaim what is ours

This was not just a piece of land to us. It was our home, it was family, it was a our place to welcome people from all over the world, to learn and support each other, where we could grow and connect. In the most simple and wonderful way, it was our community and our life. But now our family have been split up; and more than anything we want to be back together.

6 months have passed since the bullshit eviction of Køpiplatz and some things still haven’t changed; the ground still stays empty, except a couple of hired goons to watch over it, but now it is filled with the wreckage of what was once our homes and lives.

The offer we received from the state and Howoge was not designed to support us, but rather a ‘Catch 22′ that would split us up in a variety of unacceptable ways, including an offer to remove 70 percent and leave a slither of land only able to accommodate a couple of trailers. These offers were refused. As a wagenplatz we are all or nothing and we are still a family despite now being forced apart and scattered across Berlin, and we are still searching for a place to be back together. [Read More]

Berlin: Illegal eviction of Køpi wagenplatz. Supposed owner gave falsified signature in court. Nevertheless eviction plan goes ahead.

On the 8th of October 2021 we gave a press conference in front of Köpi. Read our statement:

Just a week before the eviction of the Køpi wagenplatz we received the report from the official investigator for signature verificationthat the signature presented at the trial in May 2021 by the supposed owner Yervand Chuckhajyan of the postbox company Startezia GmbH differs from previous signatures and is therefore false.

The falsification, and the fact no one ever saw Mr Chuckhajyan, reinforces our suspicion that the supposed owner of this postbox company does in fact not represent the company and is actually another fraud of the real owner of this postbox company, Siegried Nelhs of SANUS AG.

At the trial also the judge Claudia Wolter noticed the different signatures, criticized the supposed owner for not being present at the trial and questioned his lawyers about their relationship with their client. Nevertheless the judge decided that if Startezia GmbH pays a security deposit of 200.000€ the eviction can go ahead even before our appeal hearing. Again we see that justice is not blind, that the court favours suspicious anonymous postbox companies with enough money over the lives, homes and futures of dozens of people. [Read More]

Berlin: eviction of Køpi Wagenplatz, 15 October

Dear comrades!

We have now received the date for the eviction of Køpi Wagenplatz. On 15 October 2021, at 10:00 AM!
Therefore, we call for action weeks from now on, on one hand to push the topic of the planned eviction massively in the public and to mobilize, on the other hand this should once again give the opportunity to network, to discuss, to learn and to organize.
The action weeks should take place from now until the planned eviction as long and continuously as possible.
For this we need your support!
If you want to organize an info- or discussion event, a workshop or open skill sharing, please write us the dates and publish them yourself on Stressfaktor and other event pages.
Banners can be put up anytime and anywhere, posters and stickers can be put up, flyers can be distributed and soli photos can be published. A drink in your bar/pub could temporarily be called ‘Køpiplatz bleibt!’ or whatever you can think of, just do it! Also writing solo statements and spreading our info + events, articles and statements help us out!
If you have space in your location for such an event, but don’t want to or can’t organize anything yourself, you are also welcome to contact us in order to be able to refer other groups without rooms if necessary.
Also groups with event ideas but no location are welcome to contact us. [Read More]

Berlin: Update on the International Call for Action and Discussion Days

International Call for Action and Discussion Days in Berlin 30.10.-01.11.2020
United We Fight! Connect Urban Struggles – Defend Autonomous Spaces

As Interkiezionale we keep up our 9 September call to the international action and discussion days of 30.10.-01.11.2020! We would like to inform you briefly about the current status of the preparations.

The spread of the Corona Pandemic, especially in a cold autumn like this one, and the governmental measures and regulations that accompany it, present us with new challenges. Clearly, we must and want to take care of each other and not endanger our health. At the same time, we see it as a necessity and not an arbitrary voluntary decision to continue our struggles in urban areas and, accordingly, to discuss and come together. [Read More]

Berlin: Attack the city of the rich. Defend the projects

The gentrification in Berlin continues incessantly, and with it displacement. Not only people but also spaces are affected: Spaces of the radical movement, open spaces, safer spaces for people affected by discrimination, non-commercial spaces, spaces of subculture, of political networking and spaces where people try to live concrete utopias.

One struggle – one fight
In recent years, spaces such as the Liebig14 house project, the youth centre Drugstore , the community space Friedel54, the wagon places DieselA & Sabot Garden, the O-Platz occupation and the occupied school in Ohlauer Straße have already disappeared.
But it does not stop there. Many other spaces are currently under threat. The youth centre Potse, the house project Liebig34 and the bar collective Syndikat & Meuterei expect an eviction before the end of the year. Other spaces such as the house project Rigaer94, the house project Köpi137, the community house Lause10/11 or the community garden Prachttomate face a similar threat in the near future.

No spaces – no movement
All of these are spaces that live and fight for a different Berlin: a Berlin in which we know our neighbours, in which we create our houses and our neighbourhood together and jointly determine how public space is used. A Berlin where there is room for self-chosen living concepts. A Berlin in which we can try out alternatives to the exploitative and oppressive relations of wage labour, care work, educational system and on the basis of rent and ownership. [Read More]

Berlin: Syndikat Stays! New eviction date on August 7th

! Assembly / Rally !
Sunday, 14.06. | 4 pm | in front of Syndikat (Weisestr. 56)
Current information, dates & material and space for exchange and ideas. And, of course, make it loud and clear: Syndikat Stays!
Whispered translation is organized.

Corona’s over!? – The Senate is starting evictions again…

Corona has been an up and down of emotions for us so far. After the very sudden shutdown and the fear of having to experience the first evacuation attempt on April 17th without a proper conclusion, the cancellation followed shortly before. Thereupon a long hangover, financial worries and the uncertainty whether we would ever be able to open again in any form. Then, last week, the rather surprising news of being able to open again under certain conditions. Unfortunately, the joy did not last long, because on our 2nd (semi-)open day, we received mail from Bossin, the bailiff of the high court, again: the second first eviction attempt is now scheduled for Friday, August 7th at 9 am. [Read More]

Berlin: Whoever buys Köpi buys trouble…

Berlin is number one nationwide, when it comes to the rapid increase in real estate value. This is what the latest “Global Residential Cities Index” reveals. Therefore it is no surprise that after a few years of relative peace, the Köpi has once again become desirable to investors for its huge profit potential. This time the owner is “going big” and is offering Köpi and the adjacent trailer park as part of an almost 100 million Euro heavy real estate package. During times of casino capitalism and zero-rate policy, it comes as no surprise that there are already several prospective customers interested in this package… [Read More]

Berlin: Expropriate Everything

It’s an unusually warm Saturday in Berlin—if it even makes sense to refer to the weather as “unusual” anymore. I wake up early, read a bit, write some emails, change some diapers, and then head out to meet some friends at the café before the big demo. The Mietwahnsinn or “rent insanity” protest is an annual gathering of tens of thousands of people at Alexanderplatz who come together to loudly and colorfully decry the seemingly unstoppable rise of rents in the German capital. Like most big protests here, it feels like a party. Strolling down Karl-Marx-Allee, a massive boulevard built in Stalinist style for East Berlin, 40,000 human beings throb to the bass—young, old, parents, roommates, co-workers, students, tenants, and activists all drifting together in common disarray, like a roving concert, shouting about rent-sharks, high costs of living, and, most of all, expropriation. The word is on everyone’s lips, not least the city senate, the big property owners and real estate companies, the struggling tenants and just about anyone else who’s read the paper, watched the news, or walked the streets where posters, banners and graffiti calling for the expropriation of Deutsche Wohnen & Co are ubiquitous. In most cities, such radical slogans would be ignored or dismissed as the infantile fantasies of an ultra-left fringe. But not here. The demand to expropriate the largest profit-oriented property owners in Berlin—in other words, to socialize over 200,000 private apartments—is a serious proposal, one that may, in fact, take place. How did this happen? [Read More]

Berlin: 2019 A decisive year ?

Within the next days the contracts of Liebig34, Potse, Drugstore, Großbeerenstraße 17a and Syndikat are ending. The future of many other projects like Meuterei, Rigaer94, Brauni is not much clearer. Whether they just have more time or the so called owners are playing with concealed cards, we have to develop and adopt a defense for these projects.

A good moment to go into a counteroffensive

The restructuring of the city is thundering on and even a bourgeois middle class can not ignore the consequences anymore. The City is becoming more and more dense and those that still fit in it richer with every wave of gentrification. Houses are getting forcefully vacated, renovated and turned into condos. Renters get forcefully evicted when the so called owners are coming up with more modern schemes of maximizing their profit, renters cannot keep pace with rent raises or are just plain “too annoying”. The last vacant lots are getting covered with new luxury lofts even when they very well were used since their beginning by the people around. Commercial premises are being rented out at such a steep price that businesses inevitably have to become more high priced and exclusive even when the operators might not want that. [Read More]

Berlin: Attacks on Google and gentrification

On Thursday 1/11/2018 we did some work using angry hammers on the door of a Google office under construction in Tucholskystraße, Berlin.
Even if a Google campus is not to be set up in Kreuzberg for the time being, Google remains an engine of our alienated daily life and an instrument of authority. To attack Google, control and dominion, be it with graffiti, solidarity, hacking or hammers, is necessary in order to breath with self-determination.
The essence is in the liberating decision to act in person.
On Saturday night of 03/11, an evil spirit took the initiative to damage an ex neighbourhood shop in Friedelstraße 54. The poltergeist destroyed the walls, the windows, the pipes and the floors. Of course with every regard for those who live in the house.
As Halloween is over, one can foresee that the building will remain doomed for the whole year. Little is known about spirits, except that they seek company, usually remain alone and let themselves be cast out most unwillingly. This should be clear to businesses and possible tenants as they decide to rent the haunted place in Friedelstraße 54. [Read More]

Berlin: Updated 3/7: Fight against eviction of squatted refugee school

Note: This page will be continually updated as events unfold.

The school is now in its 10th day of resistance! Scroll down to the bottom for latest news.

Latest updates on twitter and ticker

[Read More]