Liebigstrasse 14 (Berlin)

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Façade of Liebigstrasse 14 the day after the eviction

In the house at Liebigstrasse 14 in the so-called Nordkiez of the Berlin district of Friedrichshain, there was a residential project that resulted from an illegal squatting , the evacuation of which was accompanied by violent riots and public attention in February 2011.

history

Façade of Liebigstrasse 14 with banners, 2009

At the beginning of 1990, the then vacant building at Liebigstrasse 14, like many other houses in the area, was occupied. After Mainzer Strasse was cleared in November 1990, the squatters began negotiations with the owner of the house, the Friedrichshain municipal housing cooperative (WBF) and the city of Berlin, about legalizing the housing situation. As a result, regular rental contracts for nine residential units of the house were concluded in 1992 and the renovation of the house began. In 1994, the residents were asked to pay rent for the first time during ongoing construction work. In January 1996, the rent payment obligation began.

In 1999 the house, along with other projects ( Rigaer Strasse 94, 95 and 96) in Friedrichshain, was acquired by two shareholders of Lila GbR and the construction of an eco-apartment block was announced.

On March 15, 2007, the existing rental contracts were terminated without notice, and on December 19, 2007, a renewed termination was given with a three-day eviction period. Then there were lawsuits before the Berlin district court, on November 13, 2009 the termination was declared legal due to inadmissible rent reductions and unauthorized structural changes. At that time, 28 people were officially living at Liebigstrasse 14.

The project also hit the headlines in November 2009 when a resident was arrested on suspicion of being responsible for two arson attacks on cars in Friedrichshain and Liebigstrasse 14 was then searched by 140 police officers. As a result, there were protests and property damage to Berlin SPD headquarters on several occasions.

An objection to the eviction of the house was recently rejected by the Kreuzberg-Tempelhof district court. The eviction began on February 2, 2011 at 8 a.m. Up to 2,500 police officers were on duty in the area.

Reactions to the eviction

Candles, flowers, crosses remind of the house project and its evacuation

Shortly after the final date for the eviction was announced - February 2, 2011 - there were numerous demonstrations, expressions of solidarity and other protests. For example, on January 29, protests against the evacuation in Berlin led to violent riots in which 40 police officers were injured. On the day of the evacuation, the area around the residential project was cordoned off. Smaller demonstrations took place throughout the Friedrichshain district, many of them spontaneous. In the evening, around 1,500 to 2,000 people moved from Boxhagener Platz through the Friedrichshain Südkiez, and numerous window panes, billboards and traffic lights were broken during riots. A total of 61 police officers were injured during the evacuation, 82 demonstrators were provisionally arrested and 22 arrested persons were brought before the judge. The cost of the police operation was put at over one million euros.

Further demonstrations took place on February 2nd in Copenhagen , Osnabrück , Hamburg , Gießen , Saarbrücken , Bremen , Jena , Bielefeld , Dortmund , Rostock , Düsseldorf and Dresden . Solidarity campaigns took place in numerous German cities as well as in London , Edinburgh , Oslo , Vilnius , Chișinău and Sapporo .

The green district mayor of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg , Franz Schulz , expressed his regret at the end of the residential project as an alternative form of living and feared a domino effect that could endanger other similar projects. The CDU then demanded Schulz 'resignation. Halina Wawzyniak , leader of the left in the district, expressed sadness and disappointment over the eviction and the failure of a negotiated solution.

The Green's top candidate for the Berlin House of Representatives elections, Renate Künast, defended the eviction. According to residents and their lawyer, Max Althoff, the police evacuation of the building was unlawful. The police did not determine whether the people present in the building were actually mentioned in the evacuation permits. Furthermore, Althoff was denied a conversation with the bailiff. Similar allegations against Berlin authorities have already been made in previous evictions. At the request of the CDU faction who discussed 9 February 2011 the Bundestag in an hour current on the clearance and the riots between police and demonstrators.

After the eviction

On the night of February 21, 2011, an arson attack was carried out on the evacuated house. In May 2011, strangers covered the roof of the neighboring house, which is also owned by Lila GbR, over an area of ​​15 m² and sawed the roof beams. This caused damage to a heating pipe, which led to water damage in the house. In the scene on the left, “Liebig 14” became a symbol of resistance to rising rents.

After the clearance, the owner began with the renovation and new letting. Construction companies' cars were set on fire several times, construction site facilities were vandalized and newly installed windows were thrown in. The first new tenants moved in and out because they couldn't stand the “terror of the extreme left scene”. Residents of the house were bothered with rubbish in the form of garbage and excrement, cars and scooters parked in front of the house were partially damaged and destroyed. Based on a left-wing demonstration in the Neukölln district, on the night of January 29, 2012, serious riots broke out around the house at Liebigstrasse 14. Among other things, the windows of several banks were broken. Around 160 police officers were on duty. 73 arrests and 48 injured police officers were the result. In one case, the authorities opened an attempted manslaughter investigation after a police officer was attacked with an iron bar in the direction of the head.

For the first anniversary of the eviction, former residents of the house and supporters from the left-wing scene held a peaceful vigil in front of the building. During the protest demonstrations on February 4, 2012, in which 1,000 people took part, it remained largely peaceful. On the second anniversary, around 100 demonstrators gathered in Liebigstrasse. The rally was peaceful, but according to the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution, residents are still "exposed to constant, almost tyrannical attacks on their living environment". In July 2020, the broadcaster RBB reported regular siege conditions and violence by the autonomous community against neighboring residents. The green district mayor and her deputy left did not give the broadcaster a statement on the situation.

Legal proceedings

After the eviction in 2011, criminal proceedings for breach of the peace were initiated against six people who had been identified as suspected criminals by two plainclothes policewomen . In June 2014, all of the defendants were acquitted because of serious doubts about the statements of the police officers. For example, both of them had misrepresented known left-wing demo calls in exactly the same way and later revoked partial statements about their memories after they had turned out to be inaccurate.

Web links

Commons : Liebigstraße 14  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Riot after eviction in Berlin - worse than on May 1st . taz, February 3, 2011
  2. Housing project is subject to court . Tagesspiegel, November 14, 2009
  3. ^ Liebigstrasse 14. Between the door and the hinge . Tagesspiegel, November 13, 2009
  4. Arrest warrant issued against car arsonists . Berliner Morgenpost, November 17, 2009
  5. Stones are flying over the SPD headquarters in Berlin . Berliner Morgenpost, March 29, 2010
  6. Objection rejected - eviction begins at 8 . Die Welt, February 1, 2011
  7. Police begin evacuating Liebigstrasse 14 . Focus online, February 2, 2011
  8. Visit with an ax: 2500 police officers evacuate the house in Berlin . spiegel.de, February 2, 2011
  9. Demo for the Liebigstrasse 14 project. 40 police officers injured in riots . Tagesspiegel, January 29, 2011
  10. 61 police officers injured in Liebig 14 riots . Die Welt, February 3, 2011
  11. What the evacuation of Liebig 14 costs . Berliner Morgenpost, February 3, 2011
  12. ^ Liebig 14 - Police secure "Dorfplatz", occupy roofs . Indymedia, February 2011
  13. Liebig 14 action stickers . Liebig 14 Soliblog, February 2011
  14. ^ The end of the occupation taz - the daily newspaper, February 2, 2011
  15. CDU calls for the resignation of the district mayor . Berliner Morgenpost, February 3, 2011
  16. Mourning and disappointment over the failure of a political solution ( memento of the original from December 13, 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. , Die Linke.Berlin, press release of February 3, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.die-linke-berlin.de
  17. Körting attacks Greens and Linke Tagesspiegel, February 2, 2011
  18. Always trouble with the eviction . taz - the daily newspaper, February 3, 2011
  19. Liebig14 reaches the Bundestag . Tagesspiegel, February 9, 2011
  20. ^ Acts of violence and ongoing riots in Berlin and other cities in the course of the evacuation of an occupied house ("Liebig 14") (PDF; 940 kB). Plenary minutes of the German Bundestag No. 17/89, pp. 10008–10022
  21. ↑ The battle for Liebigstrasse continues smoldering . Tagesspiegel, February 21, 2011
  22. Politically motivated roof damage . Tagesspiegel, May 15, 2011
  23. ↑ House fighters threaten residents . Berliner Zeitung, January 31, 2011
  24. Nocturnal street fight , Berliner Zeitung, January 29, 2012
  25. Police expect further riots in Berlin on January 30, 2012
  26. Left scene commemorates the death of "Liebig 14" . Die Welt, February 2, 2012
  27. Protests one year after the evacuation of Liebigstrasse 14 in Berlin  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Märkische Allgemeine, February 6, 2012@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.maerkischeallgemeine.de  
  28. 400 police officers on duty. Protests over "Liebig 14" remain peaceful . Tagesspiegel, February 2, 2013
  29. Panorama article, accessed on July 9, 2020
  30. Too many doubts about the witness . taz, June 18, 2014

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '4.9 "  N , 13 ° 27' 26.8"  E