Since April 2012, activists in Germany have occupied the Hambach forest to prevent the expansion of Europe’s largest open-cast coal mine. The mine expansion project would mean the clearcutting of the forest and the eviction of thousands of local residents. On March 27, 2014, the forest occupation was evicted by police and today, on April 26, 2014 a new occupation arose. There are platforms and walkways up in the trees and a big demonstration is taking place close by. After a couple of days of strong repressions and the constant attempt by the „authorities“ to criminalize the sruggle the reoccupation is successful. For more information and a current ticker visit our English blog (hambachforest.blogsport.de).
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Germany: Reoccupation of the Hambach Forest
Hamburg: Come to the Squatting Days!
From August, 27th till 31st we will make Squatting a topic again. Let’s exchange experiences together, lets discuss, roam the streets and start some action.
Reasons for squatting are numerous and various: To protest against unaffordable and rising rent, to prevent a building from being teared down, out of the need of new, self-organised and uncomercial spaces, for living, as ateliers, workshops, cultural centres and many many more.
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Hamburg: update on Saturday’s protest
The main demo was scheduled for 2pm, starting at the Rote Flora squat, located on Schulterblatt street in the Schanze district, but there were a couple more calls for street protest before and after this one.
More than 7,000 participated in Saturday’s protest (others estimate a total of 10,000 people) against attempted eviction of the Rote Flora squat, a building occupied for over 24 years, threatened to be sold by owner Klausmartin Kretschmer. Additionally, the mobilization referred to the right to stay for refugees and the Esso houses at the Reeperbahn, but was also directed against gentrification, daily surveillance, and repression within the “danger zones” (authorities are calling parts of Hamburg danger zones, like the area where the Rote Flora squat is located). Meanwhile, in the early hours of Sunday, December 15th, the Esso houses were evacuated by police and municipal authorities on the pretext of danger of collapse. [Read More]
Hamburg: Activists attacked by riot cops during the Rote Flora Squat demonstration
Riot police clashed with 8,000 protesters in Hamburg over the eviction of a social centre in Hamburg on Saturday 21st. Barricades were built and petrol bombs hurled as locals took a stand against gentrification.
This was the culmination of a long running state campaign to shut down the Rote Flora (Red Flower) social centre. Originally one of the few undamaged buildings after the Second World War, The Rote Flora centre was squatted on the 1st November 1989. Over the years it became an alternative cultural centre and a hub for political and artistic endeavours. It was used as a convergence space during the anti-G8 protests in Germany in 2007. The centre hosts flea markets, parties and other events on a regular basis. It also holds meetings for leftist and anarcho movements. It stands for immigrant rights, anti-nationalism and the resistance of the privatisation of public spaces. [Read More]
Hamburg (Germany): Demo on the 21st of December in solidarity with the Rote Flora squat, the Esso houses initiative, and for refugees’ right to stay
This demonstration was called as a sign that the autonomous spectrum will never accept an eviction of the 24-year-long Rote Flora squat. However, the mobilization has had two other main reasons, too.
Gentrification in Hamburg, and other cities, is moving rapidly every day. In Hamburg’s district St. Pauli, the Senate wants to demolish the two Esso houses (named after the gas station on the main floor), home of over 100 people. Resistance within an initiative against the demolition of Esso houses has been diverse and strong.
The refugee struggle in Hamburg has been going on for many weeks (notes on the struggle here). Over 300 self-organized refugees keep fighting against the racial profiling and deportation threat. Numerous solidarity actions and demonstrations with thousands of participants, in solidarity with the Lampedusa refugee group, have taken place in Hamburg and beyond. [Read More]
Schwarzwohnen: The spatial politics of squatting in East Berlin
East Berlin’s squatter movement erupted across the city after the fall of the wall in 1989. But what role did housing activists in the 1980s play in shaping an alternative vision for the contemporary city?
In September 1988, an anonymous report appeared in the East German underground magazine Umweltblätter describing the plight of a group of squatters who had occupied 61 Lychenerstrasse in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg. In the squatters own words, they had “occupied the house in order to overcome the contradiction between, on the one hand, the many vacant and decaying houses [in Berlin], and on the other, a growing number of people in search of housing”. As “squatters (Instandbesetzer),” they proclaimed, “we will resist the further cultural and spiritual devastation of the country.”[i]
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Hambach forest (Germany): New forest under direct threat of eviction
10/10/2013 Hambacher Forst – For the second time in one month the police has been attacking the camp. Guarded by riot cops a flying squat of RWE workers equipped with chainsaws and a bulldozer entered the protest site. Without questioning the order that had been given to them they pushed forward the destruction of the planet we‘re all living on, helping to erase one of the oldest forests in Europe. The huge bulldozer just squeezed everything in front of it: young trees, anthills and wasp’s nests as well as rare blue shining mushrooms which have been growing on some barricades were destroyed by this huge technological monster. Everything resisting was chopped to pieces. They left nothing but an aisle of destruction behind. [Read More]
Bielefeld (Germany): Banner drop in solidarity with the evicted squats in Patras, Greece
Comrades,
We heard about the eviction of the squats in Patras/Greece. So we put up a banner on the local autonomous centre to show our solidarity and inform the people here.
The banner reads: “Squats Parartima, Maragopouleio, Steki at TEI evicted in Patras. Fight back the state attacks! Freedom for all!”.
Keep on fighting!
Rage and lots of regards from Bielefeld/Germany
Source – Contra Info
Berlin: Police raid Rigaer 94 this morning and other flats, demo tonight at 8pm in solidarity
According to first reports, there were huge police raids on eight house projects and apartments in Berlin, including the Rigaer 94, this morning (14/8). The cops are supposedly looking for people responsible for attacks on various job centers (‘welfare offices’) as well as a recent molotov attack against police, who were conducting a drug raid in Köttbusser Tor during a solidarity demonstration for the revolt in Turkey. More news as it comes…
Below is a call for spontaneous demonstration in response to the raids:
This morning, August 14th, 2013, cops raided several apartments in the Mitte, Kreuzberg and Neukölln neighbourhoods of Berlin.
In Friedrichshain the police deployed a riot squad, along with special task force troops to invade the house project Rigaer Straße 94 [whose front building was already stormed by cops on August 2nd]. [Read More]
Hamburg: Open letter to Saskia Sassen
Dear Ms Sassen,
in an interview with the German daily ‘tageszeitung’ published on May, 25th 2013 you answered extensively with regards to your position as curator of this year’s international building exhibition (IBA) currently underway in the Hamburg borough of Wilhelmsburg. Throughout the interview you emphasize that there can be no talk of
‘gentrification’. You virtually refrain from corroborating your statement with hard facts beyond your repeated statement that the managers of the building exhibition show ‘goodwill’ and that it is their ‘declared aim’ to not drive out the ‘local residents’.
We were quite surprised to read this. Judging by a few of your texts which we have studied, it was our understanding that it is your intention to point out a growing polarization as a result of the development of ‘global cities’.
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Cologne (Germany): Gather & Resist, 28.6. – 7.7. 2013
Yes, let`s squat again
Trapped by contracts, orders an regulations – it’s time to break free.
If the legal contract with an autonomous center is terminated we* are able to take a new step towards empowerment. The uprising takes shape and we can already feel it´s warmth, like numbed hands coming back to life in a mad tickling. We won´t complain no more, that the shitsystem as it is won´t let us have spaces of dissent. We understand that we will always have to fight for our politics, art and culture, since our ideas draw a line against the ruling class – razor sharp.
The autonomous center in Cologne has been the crystallization point of our debates and struggles in the last years – may all of it continue. The ideals that have been present in this house, for which we argued and which we celebrated, for which we had discussions and worked for, those ideals are independent of any rigid building. After all a building is just a small space in a world of force and oppression. [Read More]
Germany: AZ Cologne eviction? No Way!
The political mission of cologne’s city council has been known for a while now: The autonomous center in Kalk has to be removed and from the 30th of July 2013 there is an immediate threat of eviction. The AZ, which has been squatted and self-organized for more than three years now, cannot be removed and because nobody talked to us or involved us in any planing we will hereby declare our own political mission. [Read More]
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