Gerhart Hauptmann School (Berlin)

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Gerhart Hauptmann School
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Image wanted BW
type of school secondary schools
closure 2012
place Berlin-Kreuzberg
country Berlin
Country Germany
Coordinates 52 ° 29 '46 "  N , 13 ° 25' 49"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 29 '46 "  N , 13 ° 25' 49"  E

The Gerhart Hauptmann School in Berlin-Kreuzberg was a secondary school. In December 2012, several hundred refugees occupied the empty school building and have lived in the building complex since then until the eviction in January 2018. The occupation is part of the refugee protests in Germany from 2012 .

Gerhart Hauptmann secondary school

The high school existed until 2012. In addition to a gym, the school had several parts of the building. After the secondary school was closed, some of the rooms were used for teacher training. The association checkpoint opened in 2009, a drug consumption room in the school.

A parents' association that wanted to found a Protestant elementary school tried to find the location. The district and the then Education Councilor Monika Herrmann ( Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen ) rejected competition for public schools.

occupation

On December 8, 2012, a group of refugees occupied the vacant building of the Gerhart Hauptmann School. A few months earlier, a group of refugees had set up a protest camp on Berlin's Oranienplatz . Both occupations emerged from a protest march by refugees in 2012 against accommodation in " camps ", the residence obligation and the work ban from Würzburg to Berlin and were initially tolerated by the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district office .

From the beginning of the occupation until July 2013, the pavilion of the former school building was used as the Irving Zola House by various left-wing initiatives for events. In August 2013 this was also taken over by the refugees.

After the occupation, several hundred refugees lived in the school at times. The exact number is not known. As part of the so-called “unification paper” on Oranienplatz and the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule, 211 refugees were registered as residents of the school.

The living conditions in the school were described as bad by politicians, the press and residents. In particular, only one shower was available for all residents. The 16 showers in the adjacent gymnasium were not allowed to be used by the refugees. A resident described the conditions in the house opposite the time in June 2014 "total chaos, no good water, just a couple of mattresses, no furniture" .

There were several violent clashes in and around the school. In April 2014, a 29-year-old refugee was stabbed to death in a dispute over the use of the only available shower.

At the end of 2017 it became known: The almost 5 years of occupation cost 4.94 million euros.

Disputes over an eviction

In March 2014, a representative of the refugees from Oranienplatz reached an agreement with the Senate on an “Oranienplatz Unification Paper”. This stipulated that the refugees should dismantle the camp on Oranienplatz and vacate the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule. In return, the Senate assured that the asylum applications would be examined on a case-by-case basis. At the beginning of April the camp on Oranienplatz was evacuated.

rbb reporter Ulli cell reported locally, in the background protesters

On June 24, 2014, the Senate and the District Office also offered the refugees alternative accommodation in the school with reference to the agreement. This was accompanied by a police operation with up to 1,700 officers requested by the district office. The streets around the building were cordoned off to prevent other refugees from entering the school. The M29 bus line has been diverted. A few weeks earlier, the district had decided to set up an "international refugee center" in the building. This should serve as an initial reception point and offer 70 places to live.

Around 160 of the estimated 200 residents accepted the offer. Around 40 refugees refused to leave the building. Supporters of the refugees carried out demonstrations at the barriers and in the rest of the city. On June 28, 2014, several thousand people marched from Hermannplatz to the barriers to demonstrate under the motto “You can't evict a movement” (Eng. “A movement cannot be evacuated”) . In the event of a police storm the building, several refugees announced that they would throw themselves from the roof of the school and set the building on fire.

Journalists were denied entry to the building by the district office. A lawsuit by the daily newspaper taz against the measure was unsuccessful. The district council meeting on July 2nd was canceled for security reasons.

On June 30, the Berlin police chief, Klaus Kandt, gave the district an ultimatum: Either they submit an eviction request or the police would be withdrawn entirely. As a result, the green district councilor Hans Panhoff sent an eviction request to the police on July 1 on behalf of the district. In protest against the decision of the Green member Panhoff, offices of the Greens were occupied in several German cities .

Agreement signed between refugees and the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district office

Since negotiations between the district and the residents led to a result on the evening of July 2, an eviction did not take place. The remaining refugees signed an agreement by majority vote that allowed them to stay in the occupied school. It was agreed that the fire escape routes would be cleared and that the refugees, together with the district, would prevent further refugees from moving in. In addition, the district assured the expansion of the sanitary facilities and the payment of benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act. On July 4, the Berlin Senate declared that it rejected the agreement and that it would not pay out any benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act for the refugees at school.

On July 5th there was another demonstration with several thousand participants against the police presence in the neighborhood and the politics of the Senate. A vote against Panhoff by the Left Party and Pirates failed.

At the end of September, the district office asked the remaining refugees again to leave the building. The refugees had repeatedly violated the agreement with the district office by breaking open doors and threatening the security guard. The establishment of a refugee center is not possible under these circumstances. Among other things, possible sponsors are only willing to do so if the refugees leave school beforehand. Several residents of the school then fought in court for injunctions against the district, which forbade it to evacuate. In mid-February 2015, the district office again requested residents in writing to leave the school by March 19 at the latest. An eviction is not up for discussion until the pending proceedings are concluded. In May 2015 the Berlin administrative court ruled that the refugees could continue to live in the school. The district should strive for an evacuation by civil law through an eviction title , which the district has so far failed to do, "although it would have been able to do so without further ado". This judgment was confirmed by the Higher Administrative Court in October 2015 . In August 2016, the district filed for eviction against the remaining residents. In July 2017, the Berlin district court largely upheld the lawsuit and issued an eviction notice. The agreement of July 2014 was only a temporary arrangement, from which no permanent right of residence resulted. District mayor Monika Herrmann announced at the beginning of August that the district would offer the residents alternative accommodation and - should they not move out voluntarily - commission the bailiff. In mid-November, a bailiff announced an eviction on January 11th, which was carried out as planned, amid protests by around a hundred people.

Three out of 540 refugees were granted a right of residence by the Berlin immigration authorities through the individual assessment as part of the “Einigungspapier Oranienplatz”. Some refugees then fought for a temporary right of residence in Berlin and continued payment of social benefits.

Usage plans

According to the district's plans from 2013, the school was to be converted into a "project house" after the occupation ended, in which various social projects threatened by displacement due to the lack of space in the district should find space. Plans from November 2014 envisaged the conversion into an “international refugee center”. An emergency shelter with up to 109 places has now been opened in one of the wings of the Gerhart Hauptmann School. In the medium term, the "Campus Ohlauer" is to be built there. To this end, the emergency shelter is to be converted into a communal shelter. In a new building, together with the Howoge housing association, 140 apartments are to be built, primarily for homeless women, refugees, students and a library.

Web links

Commons : Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Drug consumption rooms and mobile devices , Fixpunkt eV
  2. ↑ Once upon a time there was a school , Tagesspiegel, January 2, 2014, last accessed on July 3, 2014
  3. ↑ International Refugee Center ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , District Office Friedrichshain - Kreuzberg, May 2014  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / redmine.piratenfraktion-berlin.de
  4. ↑ Supporters of the refugees briefly occupy the district office , Berliner Morgenpost, June 25, 2014
  5. ^ Only one shower for 220 refugees , Tagesspiegel , May 14, 2014
  6. ↑ Police occupy the Green Heart , Zeit Online , July 1, 2014, last accessed on July 3, 2014
  7. ^ Refugee dead: Friends say goodbye , BZ , April 28, 2014
  8. ↑ So it costs five million euros to fill the Hauptmann School! ( bz-berlin.de [accessed on November 28, 2017]).
  9. ↑ “Einigungspapier Oranienplatz” , documented on berlin.de
  10. ↑ Jörn Hasselmann, Veronica Frenzel, Sigrid Kneist, Werner van Bebber: No peace in the huts , Tagesspiegel, April 8, 2014
  11. ↑ Kreuzberg wants to convert an occupied school into a refugee center , Berliner Morgenpost, June 12, 2014
  12. ↑ Demo with thousands of supporters , taz.de from June 28, 2014
  13. ↑ The press is not allowed in the school , taz, July 2, 2014
  14. ^ Refugees: Parliament of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg does not meet , dpa via Focus , July 2, 2014
  15. ↑ Refugees in Berlin School: Greens cleared out on July 1, 2014
  16. ↑ Activists occupy the office of the Greens in the Göttingen town hall , Göttinger Tageblatt , July 3, 2014, last accessed on July 3, 2014
  17. ↑ Gießener Anzeiger Verlag & Co Kg: District office occupied by the Greens. In: giessener-anzeiger.de. July 7, 2014, accessed August 25, 2017 .
  18. ↑ "We almost went crazy" , taz, July 4th 2014
  19. ↑ Agreement paper documented by the taz (PDF, 0.5 MB)
  20. ↑ Berlin refugees: Occupied school in Kreuzberg will not be cleared , Spiegel Online , July 2, 2014, last accessed on July 3, 2014
  21. ^ At least, a paper , taz, July 3, 2014
  22. ↑ Senate rejects the agreement , Berliner Zeitung , July 4, 2014
  23. ↑ 2,700 demonstrators demand a right to stay , Berliner Zeitung , July 6, 2014
  24. ↑ Plutonia Plarre, Stefan Alberti: Panhoff remains city councilor , taz, August 27, 2014
  25. ^ Thomas Loy: Scandal in BVV von Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg , Berliner Tagesspiegel , September 24, 2014
  26. ↑ Plutonia Plarre: Another refugee is allowed to stay in school , taz, November 12, 2014
  27. ↑ Stefan Jacobs: Refugees should vacate the occupied Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule by March 19 , Tagesspiegel, February 22, 2015
  28. ↑ Fatina Keilani, Bodo Straub: Refugees are allowed to stay in the Hauptmann-Schule - first , Tagesspiegel , May 22, 2015
  29. ↑ Nina Apin: Refugee School in Kreuzberg: District is not allowed to vacate. In: taz.de . October 4, 2015, accessed October 5, 2015 .
  30. ↑ Refugee protest : Kreuzberg wants to clear the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule - Berlin - Tagesspiegel. In: tagesspiegel.de . Retrieved August 3, 2016 (undated).
  31. ↑ Bert Schulz: Occupied refugee school in Berlin: Regional court allows eviction. In: taz.de . July 12, 2017. Retrieved July 12, 2017 .
  32. ↑ Plutonia Plarre: Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule: district mayor remains tough. In: taz.de . August 1, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2017 .
  33. ↑ Erik Peter: Refugee School in Berlin: The evacuation comes in early January. In: taz.de . November 16, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017 .
  34. ↑ Evacuation of the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule: Police find the building abandoned. In: taz.de . January 11, 2018, accessed January 11, 2018 .
  35. ↑ 26 procedures have not yet been decided as of January 2015. The remaining exams were negative.
    Sigrid Kneist: Only three refugees from Kreuzberg are allowed to stay , Tagesspiegel, January 8, 2015
  36. ↑ Sigrid Kneist, Bodo Straub: [l refuge in front of court], Tagesspiegel, November 12, 2014
  37. ↑ Preparation, moderation and documentation of public events in the context of user identification and development of an operator model for the project building Reichenberger Straße 131 ( memento of the original from January 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Printed matter from the District Council DS / 0387 / IV  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlin.de
  38. ↑ Refugees should leave Gerhart Hauptmann School ( memento from January 20, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ), RBB online, September 23, 2014; District Office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg: Press release on the transformation of the former Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule into a refugee center, November 3, 2014
  39. ^ Karin Schmidl: Kreuzberg: Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule will be refugee accommodation this month. Retrieved September 12, 2016 .