Rent strike
A rent strike is the collective refusal to pay rent by a house community or a larger group of tenants as a form of political protest.
definition
Rent strikes are a rather seldom form of protest in social movements , since refusal to pay rent in almost all legal systems threatens eviction and thus homelessness of the residents. Nevertheless, this form of protest has been used again and again in severe economic crises or times of high political activation of the population - in Germany for example in the November Revolution or the global economic crisis from 1929.
Berlin rent strike 1919
In the summer of 1919 a rent strike took place in Berlin, which was organized by the movement of the unemployment councils. The unemployment councils were part of the council movement , but were not organized in factories but in public general assemblies. According to contemporary press reports, around 200,000 unemployed and low-income people took part in the rent strike, but according to historian Axel Weipert, this number can no longer be verified today. The protest was directed against the massively increased prices as a result of post-war inflation, which meant that the municipal unemployment welfare support rates fell below the subsistence level and tenants had to choose between buying groceries and paying rent. The expropriation of the homeowners was also demanded as a further requirement . Local adjustments to the support payments were achieved, for example in Berlin-Charlottenburg.
Berlin rent strike 1932–1933
The Berlin rent strike of 1932 was a reaction to the extreme impoverishment of Berlin's working-class households during the Great Depression , many households were in any case unable to pay rent after the cuts in welfare and support payments under the austerity policy of Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning . Since they were threatened with eviction anyway, it was very easy to take part in a spontaneous rent strike in 1932. The movement found great support, especially in the working-class neighborhoods, and was particularly supported by the KPD . The strike also benefited from the fact that the legal situation of the rent strike was not clarified: the protesters invoked the right to strike and the right to form associations, i.e. the right to freedom of association. It was not until early 1933, before the Nazis came to power, that a court ruled that rental strikes were not covered by the right to strike , as labor was not withheld as in other strikes, but only payment for rented property that was still in use was refused.
This judgment, but also the unchecked street terror of the Nazi movement against all organizations and groups close to the workers' movement shortly afterwards ended the rent strike without its demands having been met. However, individual protests against evictions, known at the time as "Exmission", were very successful. By occupying hallways, bailiffs could be prevented from entering the apartment, or the furniture was simply carried back in after the eviction was carried out. In many cases this has put pressure on landlords and prevents homelessness.
Student rent strike in Hamburg in 1974
In protest against a rent increase, residents of Hamburg student dormitories organized a rent strike in 1974 and demanded rent subsidies from the Senate. In order to avoid legal consequences, they only withheld part of the rent - the increase. According to tenancy law at the time, a termination was only possible if there was a payment arrears of a full month's rent. So it was basically a partial rent strike, related to the rent reduction, which is also legal under today's tenancy law in the event of defects in the apartment (and only in this case).
Rent strike of a house community against a Nazi perpetrator in 1979
A local special case is the rent strike of a Berlin house community against a Nazi war criminal. In 1979, tenants learned through media reports that their home owner Aribert Heim, as a camp doctor in the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, was responsible for severe abuse, medical experiments on people and the murder of prisoners and that an arrest warrant had been sought since 1962. The rent was collected by an authorized notary and supposedly went to the fugitive Nazi perpetrator. The residents now demanded the expropriation of the home in accordance with the 2nd Denazification Act of 1955, which was valid in Berlin. Until this demand was clarified, they transferred the rent to a blocked account. A foreclosure of the house as part of an atonement proceeding was initiated in Berlin as early as 1979, however, due to a seizure order pending in Baden-Baden at the same time, the house was only executed and sold in 1988. Despite an intensive search, the homeowner Heim was never found, it was only found in 2009 that he died in Egypt in 1992.
The case is a special case because, on the one hand, the reason for the rent strike was not a conflict in the context of the tenancy and, moreover, the homeowner was fleeting and therefore could not take legal action against the tenant. However, it shows the flexibility with which the form of protest “rent strike” was used by tenants in various historical epochs.
literature
- Simon Lengemann: “First the food, then the rent!” Protest and self-help in Berlin working-class neighborhoods during the Great Depression from 1931 to 1933. In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue III / 2015 ( online ).
- Philipp Mattern (ed.): Tenant struggles. From the German Empire to today - the example of Berlin. Berlin 2018.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Axel Weipert: The Second Revolution - Council Movement in Berlin 1919/1920 . Berlin 2015, p. 307.
- ↑ Simon Lengemann: “First the food, then the rent!” Protest and self-help in Berlin working-class neighborhoods during the Great Depression, 1931 to 1933. In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue III / 2015 ( online ).
- ↑ Student rent strike continues. Hamburger Abendblatt from November 28, 1974.
- ^ Rent strike against concentration camp murderers. District newspaper 21, Berlin-Moabit 1979, online reprint.