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For some it is a home, a safe haven, a place of exchange between like-minded people. For others, it is a bulwark of the autonomous leftist scene, a repository of violent radicals, a lawless space. When the house at Liebigstrasse 34 in Friedrichshain clears on Friday October 9, probably amid mass protests, two worlds collide.
There are those who have lived in, around and with the house for about 30 years. In 1990, shortly after the fall of the Wall, the house was occupied for the first time and shortly after legalized with rental contracts. For 28 years he was pretty quiet about “Liebig 34”, since 1999 a self-proclaimed “anarcha-queer-feminist house project” in which women, trans and intersex people coexist in changing constellations.
A few meters ahead, on Rigaer Strasse, riots, marches and noisy parties continue to provoke conflicts with authorities and neighbors. Some residents speak of “terror” by left-wing radicals, reports of “conditions of civil war.” They describe stained doors and facades, thrown windows, and sometimes physical attacks.
Other residents openly sympathize with residents of the neighborhood’s partially occupied and partially legal housing projects. “Living here is better than going to the movies,” says a local resident who describes herself as a leftist politician. She appreciates the “alternative vibe” in the district, which hardly exists anywhere else in Berlin.
Educators at the adjoining “Rock’n’Roll Zwerge” children’s store describe their relationship with residents of the house projects as characterized by “neighborhood interaction, respect and warmth”, while the police ensure the “state of siege” in the neighborhood, which traumatized the children in the nursery.
When the house project on Liebigstrasse 14, diagonally across from “Liebig 34”, was cleared on February 2, 2011, 2,500 police officers arrived with water cannons, helicopters and cleaning vehicles. Freelancers and policemen fought in street battles for days, barricades were burned, cobblestones were blown up. Years later, supporters of the scene organized “zombie parades” on the anniversary of the eviction.
Rigaer Straße 94: “The epicenter of the riots”
Partially occupied Rigaer Strasse 94 a few meters away was considered the epicenter of the unrest, and owners, lawyers, residents and the district have been fighting for years. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution sees the building as the “central institution of the autonomous Berlin stage prepared for violence”, as a “stage place with national importance”.
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The security authorities assign some of the residents to the “hard core of extremist left-wing militants.” Also, there are people who live in this house on regular rental contracts that are not legally noticed.
At the time, too, things remained fairly quiet about the “Liebig 34.” After several changes in ownership, the neighborhood housing association signed a ten-year lease with controversial real estate investor Gijora Padovicz in 2008. It is said that he acquired the house for 600,000 euros.
The “Liebig 34” suddenly came to the fore when the lease expired at the end of 2018. Attempts to mediate by construction councilor Florian Schmidt (Greens) failed, the lease was not extended. The residents stayed. The landlord sued, after several court dates, some of which escalated, the eviction title was at the end.
The eviction title is final
The title is legally binding, even if residents continue to consider it illegal. It indicates an association of false residents against which the sentence is directed. In fact, the defendant association has sublet the house to another alleged association.
For weeks, neighbors, supporters and autonomists from half of Europe have been preparing for the confrontation with the police, the so-called “X Day”. Under this heading, the Autonomists have been calling for the greatest possible chaos and property damage every time an object is evacuated from the left scene. The motto: “Make every eviction a disaster!”
Chat groups call for “decentralized campaigns” throughout the city to “raise the price of eviction.” In recent days, among other things, the autonomists attacked a courthouse, a police station, set fire to cars and S-Bahn cables, always with reference to the evacuation of the “Liebig 34”.
Followers announce the greatest possible chaos
In an interview with Tagesspiegel, a neighbor announced a few months ago that there would be disputes similar to those that occurred when the “Liebig 14” was cleared. He spoke of a “legitimate right to self-defense”, which does not exclude violence either, if the state protects the rights of real estate speculators rather than those of residents.
In a call for protests against the eviction, supporters announce the greatest possible chaos: “We cannot win a direct confrontation with militarized police. We can be successful for a short time by surprise, ”he says.
Residents and supporters are united in fear of losing another retreat. In a city once known for left-wing squatters, cheap rents and creative freedom, housing projects, left-wing pubs, and retirement places are on the decline.
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More recently, in August, the left-wing neighborhood bar “Syndikat” in Neukölln was cleared after more than 30 years. Eviction titles have been issued against the “Meuterei” bar association in Kreuzberg and the occupied youth club “Potse” in Schöneberg.
For the police it is about enforcing the law, for the neighbors it is a symbol of freedom
With each eviction, each resignation, the feeling of helplessness grows on the scene, but also anger. Even so, it would be wrong to assume that it is the There are the autonomists. The so-called “left militant core” of “Rigaer 94”, for example, is considered relatively isolated by those who know the scene and the protection of the constitution.
And the police are also preparing: the entire neighborhood around “Liebig 34” was declared a “restricted area” on Thursday. Operations management plans with several thousand officers, water cannons, height rescuers, and special forces. The autonomists describe this as a “first success”, because the eviction will be the “most expensive” since 1990.
For the police it is the legally legitimate execution of an eviction permit. For the neighbors, to a certain extent, about their real-life utopia. “The Liebig is first and foremost one of the symbols of a city, as it could be if they allowed us to design it ourselves,” the neighbors wrote in a statement. Not many of these symbols remain.
