Anatopia

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Anatopia was four years existing cottage village in Papenburg in Emsland , in 1991 on the site of the planned at that time Mercedes - test track today Automotive Testing Papenburg was built by test track opponents. It existed as a protest camp until it was evacuated by the Lower Saxony police in 1995.

Establishment and goals

The hut village, which consists of around 20 wooden buildings and caravans, was built on July 4, 1991 by young people from the left-wing alternative scene. It was created on the future test track area in the area of ​​a planned bridge structure. In the summer, up to 100 people stayed in the camp, including students from Berlin, Oldenburg and the Netherlands. In winter only 3 to 4 people lived there at times. The farmers in the vicinity did not support the goals of the hut village residents, but provided them with food and water.

The hut village was primarily directed against the construction of the approximately 12 km long test track in the extensive moorland south-east of Papenburg. It belongs to the largest contiguous marsh area in northern Germany and should größflächig for construction abgetorft be. There were numerous motives among the hut village residents to occupy the future building site. First and foremost, the destruction of the bog should be prevented in this way. On the other hand, the protest was directed against the plans of the Mercedes company to build faster and larger sedans. The camp residents also included activists who saw their presence as resistance "against all forms of exploitation" or who wanted to practice an alternative and simple lifestyle here.

Clearance and test track construction

Since the hut village had been illegally built on the future construction site of the test track, the Mercedes company took legal action against the residents. From November 1994 they were obliged to leave the hut village. Since it was feared that the building would be evacuated soon, sympathizers initiated solidarity actions locally and throughout Germany, which were also directed against the Mercedes company. These included demonstrations in Papenburg, Berlin and Stuttgart, but also attacks on Mercedes branches in Hanover, Hamburg and Wuppertal, some of them through arson attacks .

When members of the Black Bloc erected a barricade on the road to Hüttendorf on January 7, 1995 and set it on fire and attacked the police with stones and flares, the evacuation took place on January 9, 1995. About 350 police officers cleared the hut village that its residents had already left. Immediately after the evacuation, in January 1995 sympathizers from the hut village carried out further solidarity actions across Germany. This included spontaneous demonstrations in Bielefeld, Hamburg, Lübeck and Osnabrück as well as damage to branches. Mercedes branches in Greifswald and Wilhelmshaven were affected by arson attacks.

Construction of the test site began in 1995. After it went into operation in 1997, the test track originally planned by Mercedes became a manufacturer-independent automotive test site, which has been known as Automotive Testing Papenburg since 1998 .

reception

A film documentary was made about the hut village Anatopia in 1996, which had the hut village and the test track as its content. The music group Guts Pie Earshot produced a film score for this in 1995.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Moorsiedlers protest against test track at NDR as a film report from August 26, 1993
  2. ↑ Test route: Opponents block the road to the Hüttendorf ( memento from January 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) at NDR as a film report from January 7, 1995

Coordinates: 53 ° 3 '22 "  N , 7 ° 30' 59"  E