Tree house on the wall

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Tree house on the wall, 2012

The tree house on the wall (also jokingly called " Gecekondu von Kreuzberg" or " Guerilla Garden ") is a two-story hut built from bulky waste by the Turkish immigrant Osman Kalin (1925-2018) on an occupied traffic island on Bethaniendamm on the border between the Berlin districts of Mitte and Kreuzberg . Strictly speaking, however, it is not a tree house , but a garden house built around two trees .

During the division of the city, it was in the no man's land of the Berlin Wall ; later it was tolerated by the municipal authorities, although it had been built in public space without a building permit or lease agreement. Due to its history and unusual appearance in the cityscape, it is considered a sight and tourist attraction.

The property is not connected to an electricity or water supply. The beds are mainly supplied with rainwater.

Use during the division of the city

The triangular property belonged to East Berlin (top left), but was on the western side (bottom right) of the Berlin Wall

Osman Kalin migrated in 1963 from the central Anatolian city ​​of Yozgat to Austria for five years and then worked in Stuttgart and Mannheim . In 1980 he moved to Berlin with his wife Hatice and their children, first to Spandau and later to Kreuzberg. The approximately 350 square meter property on which today's tree house on the wall is located was located directly on the Berlin wall strip . Although the triangular traffic island belonged to East Berlin , it was located on the West Berlin side of the Wall, which is why it was beyond accessibility for the eastern administration and outside of the jurisdiction for the western administration.

In 1983, as a pensioner and father of six, Kalin began to free the fallow land from bulky waste and to cultivate vegetables. He first built a single-story hut with a lower height than the wall. A higher construction was him following a visit by East German border guards of the Border Regiment No. 33 by the DDR been prohibited. There was suspicion that Kalin could use the property to build an escape tunnel . For the use of the site, however, he received a permit from the GDR side, whereby the matter is said to have gone as far as the Central Committee of the SED . Another part of the property was cultivated by another Turkish family.

Development after the fall of the wall

Garden house on Bethaniendamm in April 1990, surrounded by a car park

After the fall of the Berlin Wall , Kalin expanded the garden to the east and erected a two-story building with a concrete foundation on an area of ​​around 80 square meters, as he was no longer bound by the GDR requirements and gave him the imaginary postal address “Bethaniendamm No. 0, Berlin 10997 ".

In 1991 the house was destroyed in arson attacks and then rebuilt. After the political change , the district of Mitte was responsible for the administration of the property, which wanted to take action against the “illegal use” as part of a rehabilitation of the Luisenstädtischer Canal and asked Kalin to clear the site. Kalin refused to leave the property and was supported by residents, the Kreuzberg district office and the pastor of the adjacent St. Thomas Church . In addition, the district ran out of funds for the final renovation of the section between the Engelbecken and Köpenicker Straße that affected the garden .

Another arson attack was carried out in 2003 and the house was then rebuilt.

Various media reported that in the course of a border straightening under the district mayor Cornelia Reinauer , the property was transferred to the district of Kreuzberg in 2004 and, with the support of the district mayor Franz Schulz, had received a special permit. In fact, this straightening has not yet been implemented (as of September 2017).

After Osman Kalin had ended his activities around the house for health reasons, his son Mehmet Kalin took over the administration and public relations.

Osman Kalin died on April 16, 2018. According to his son's plans, the tree house could be opened as a museum.

Web links

Commons : Treehouse on the Wall  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Barracks with world fame. In: Berliner Morgenpost , December 2, 2007
  2. a b c The Kreuzberg guerrilla garden. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 21, 2007
  3. a b Finally on Kreuzberger Boden In: Die Tageszeitung , July 17, 2004
  4. a b c Wall vegetables instead of wall flowers. At: Deutschlandradio on August 4th, 2004
  5. Onion Mecca between East and West. In: Tenant Magazine , April 2001
  6. a b c d Hans W. Korfmann: At the wall. At: kreuzberger-chronik.de
  7. a b c A conversation? 50 Euros! In: Der Tagesspiegel , June 22, 2002
  8. a b summer house over: a hut changes the district. In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 17, 2004
  9. Osman Kalin's garden on Bethaniendamm changed district, Ein Grenzfall. In: Berliner Zeitung , July 17, 2004
  10. Map of Berlin 1: 5000 (K5 - SW edition), updated on: January 2nd, 2017
  11. Telephone information from the property cadastre group leader to an OpenStreetMap contributor on September 5, 2017
  12. Thomas Loy: Tree house on the wall is to become a museum . In: Tagesspiegel Online . May 7, 2018, ISSN  1865-2263 ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed July 13, 2018]).

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 21.6 "  N , 13 ° 25 ′ 37.8"  E