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The evacuation of the radical left house project “Liebig34” unfolded in astonishing silence on Friday. The police are still preparing for a restless weekend.
Hundreds of police officers are stationed on Liebigstrasse at dawn.
Can you sing about your own downfall? “Play me the song of death” is playing from one of the last occupied houses in Berlin, Liebigstrasse 34. It is Friday, October 9 at 7:00 am and it is off. The “Liebig34” is evacuated after years of legal disputes.
Sunrise in Friedrichshain, early, very early. But Rigaer Strasse, not far from “Liebig34”, has woken up at the latest when the first glass bottle broke between the legs of a policeman around 5 o’clock. The officer remains calm, some more will follow. It’s not funny, says an employee at Bakery 2000, a small shop directly across from “Liebig34”. And what taxes that costs, he adds, shaking his head as he prepares the first coffee of the day for one of the many journalists. He himself was never threatened, there were only empty words in his direction. Nothing to be taken seriously.
Some Berlin police see it differently. You’ve seen too much in recent years in Rigaer and Liebigstrasse. Flying stones, bags of paint, bottles and burning Bengalis are the order of the day, along with savage insults and threats when a “bull pig” appears.
Full announcements for “X Day”
In addition, the residents of the “Liebig34” did everything possible to mobilize for “X Day”. In numerous posts on social media and on the radical left-wing Internet platform “Indymedia”, they posted calls for resistance and received expressions of solidarity not only from Germany but from across Europe. Nobody knows this Friday how many people would really go to fight together with the “anarcha-queer-feminist house project” against the “capitalist patriarchy.” The police assume that there is a greater potential risk since violence has been threatened.
As you can expect from everything, this Friday it has around 1,500 police officers from different federal states. In the early hours of the morning, officials, wearing helmets and placards, confront those who, at best, have indifference for the state, at worst hatred. “Your job is to be shit,” shouts a young woman over one of the many barriers that mark the prohibition of assembly by the police. His middle finger is stretched out, his gaze wild, his mouth covered. The crown-related masking requirement is welcome for protesters, though it is probably the pandemic that kept like-minded people from arriving as well.
The “Liebig34” has been cleared: the police removed 57 people from the house.
Shortly after 6:30, an angry crowd of hundreds of protesters, most of them hooded in black, formed. Even the evacuation grows, growls and drools. Nervousness is in the air. The roar gets louder the closer the clock is to seven. The police are also reinforcing their ranks and support is arriving from Bersarinplatz and Frankfurter Tor. A helicopter flew over the restricted area during the entire mission.
“All of Berlin hates the police”
A woman’s voice can be heard through a megaphone. “Liebig stays!” Is heard from one of the few open windows of the “Liebig34”. The house is like a fortress, barricaded with all the bulky material that the residents could find. “We don’t have much time left, but we can use it to show which Berlin we want to live in.” Much of what the woman’s voice says is absorbed by the omnipresent drum and the rolling of bells. Slogans chanted from all sides, such as “All of Berlin hates the police” or “One fight, one fight,” sometimes drowned out the high-pitched screech of the megaphone. However, the woman thanked those who came at regular intervals for their solidarity.
The number of protesters present was manageable. The few hundred who caused a stir in the dark dispersed at dawn. At noon there were just over a quarter in the vicinity of “Liebig34”.
Shortly after seven, a green armored vehicle waits in front of the entrance to the “Liebig34”. Your main objective is to protect the police officers who manipulate the door. It takes about an hour before it can be opened with a chainsaw and electric cutter; Access is faster through a window on the first floor. An iron scaffold carries two policemen and their levers. After a few minutes they broke a window. It takes a while until they have pulled out a series of wooden beams blocking the way inside. They enter the house one by one. Silence. Waiting.
It can be that easy
And out: a young woman. If he greeted the crowd, you’d think he was a celebrity who just got off a plane. In any case, this ignorant goes down the ladder provided by the police. Is a stronghold of the radical left really being cleaned up here? It goes on, but it doesn’t get any more exciting. Some neighbors are led up the stairs on the arm of a police officer and then controlled by the officers, others are taken from the house by several police officers. Few are reluctant, the protest is by no means violent. Finally, 57 people are taken out of the building. The police, it seems, have crushed the radical left by their mere presence.
A high altitude police intervention team also participated in the evacuation of the “Liebig34”.
In the end it was a bitter defeat. The residents of the “Liebig34” had announced in recent days that they would prevent the evacuation of this building, which is symbolic for the scene. But the drive to “flatten the city” was within the limits set by the police. This is ideal for the police, says Berlin police spokesman Thilo Cablitz, smiling at the camera of a television crew. The situation is very emotional, but calm. Visibly in good spirits, he and his team will be available to answer questions from the journalists present throughout Friday morning. Some garbage cans and vehicles have already burned, but otherwise resistance has been low so far. Individual arrests, yes, but there are no injuries. In the adjacent streets, however, there were attacks on police officers during the day, as announced by the police via Twitter.
An interior wall in the formerly occupied house “Liebig 34”.
Is this the beginning of the end of the radical left scene in the capital? That should not be assumed. Police already expect further escalations this weekend. After all, the whole week was not quiet, says Cablitz, recalling the cable fire on Berlin’s S-Bahn network, which has been professed by so-called left-wing radicals. He calls them “resonance crimes.” For days a demonstration has also been called on Friday night, the meeting point is the Monbijoupark in Berlin Mitte. The evacuation of the “Liebig34” is not accepted: “Let’s show the pigs what we think of them by evacuating the“ Liebig34 ””, can be read on the left platform “Indymedia”.
