West runway

Frankfurt Airport before the start of construction work on the northwest runway, on the left the west runway (detail of a photo taken in April 2003 from the ISS )

The western runway , exact designation in the planning process Runway 18 West , (aeronautical term "runway 18") is a 4000 meter long pure runway at the Frankfurt Airport , which is located in the western part and runs from north to south. The smaller northern part is in the Frankfurt airport district , the larger southern part in the Rüsselsheim am Main district . Before the runway went into operation in 1984, the plans met with considerable protests and became one of the most important reference points for the environmental movement of the 1970s and 1980s.

history

Planning

In 1962, the operating company of Frankfurt Rhein-Main Airport, Flughafen Frankfurt / Main AG , decided to plan a new runway in addition to a new reception terminal. The drastic increase in air traffic had brought both the old reception building and the parallel runway system that still exists today to the limits of their capacity. The Rhine-Main area was in a steady economic upswing, which was not least due to the airport as a European air hub.

But the airport area is only surrounded by forest , including Bannwald . In addition, there was another problem: In the north the federal motorway 3 runs in an east-west direction , in the east the federal motorway 5 runs in a north-south direction , in the west an above-ground main stream also runs in a north-south direction and in the south it did American Rhein-Main Air Base an uncomplicated expansion is also impossible. Only in the south-western corner of the site was there the possibility of a new runway in north-south direction.

This meant, on the one hand, an immense logging and, on the other hand, the expansion of the airport grounds to a district that no longer belongs to the city area. But the expansion of the airport as an important economic factor was still far ahead of ecological arguments.

On December 28, 1965, Flughafen AG applied for approval to build “Runway 18 West”. In May 1966, the Hessian state parliament decided to build a new 4000 meter runway in north-south direction. In view of the political approval, Flughafen Frankfurt / Main AG ( FAG ) decided in November 1967 to build the DM 78 million project. At a time when environmental awareness was beginning, more and more citizens were skeptical of this expansion. After the planning approval decision issued by the Minister of Transport in March 1968, 44 actions for annulment were brought.

Rescission Actions

After the new Terminal Mitte (today's Terminal 1 ) was opened in March 1972, the plan approval procedure for the new runway took place one year later .

The result was now over 100 lawsuits before the Hessian administrative courts. In terms of arguments, the runway opponents, who had more and more united in citizens' initiatives (BI), saw themselves on the upswing, as both declining flight movements and the oil crisis made further expansion no longer seem sensible. Some of the runway opponents feared a function for NATO .

Administrative courts dealt with the planned expansion for almost 10 years. The resolution was revoked for formal reasons. In March 1971, the ministry issued a second planning approval decision, which again occupied the courts. At the end of 1978 a citizens' initiative (BI) was founded mainly in the affected twin town of Mörfelden-Walldorf , but also in Frankfurt and the surrounding area to oppose the expansion.

In July 1978 the Federal Administrative Court referred the actions of the opponents of the runway back to the Hessian Administrative Court . In December of the same year, the state of Hesse sold 303 hectares of land to FAG for the construction of the new runway. The expected logging was 129 hectares.

The conflict escalated

With the decision of the Hessian Administrative Court of October 21, 1980 for the construction of the new runway, the legal dispute ended, while the resistance on the ground came to a head.

From May 1980, opponents built a BI hut on the site of the planned West Runway, which was intended to provide information to walkers. In July, the Hessian Minister for Economics and Transport, Heinz-Herbert Karry (FDP), ordered the " immediate execution " for the construction of the runway. The Hessian Administrative Court rejected the application to stop (to restore the suspensive effect of the objection) in October. For technical reasons, the first tree felling work began before winter. The first thing that was cleared was a seven-hectare site directly on the airport site.

In contrast, on November 2, 1980, 15,000 people demonstrated on the edge of the forest in Walldorf, mainly environmentalists and students, but also many elderly people from the region. Since the planned occupation actions of the protest movement failed due to the lengthy police concept, the citizens' initiative decided to expand the BI hut into a permanently inhabited hut village in order to be able to react faster and more appropriately to plans to clear the area . As a result, several huts that are illegal under building and house law as well as a hut church of the Walldorf parish were built on the airport premises.

Concrete fence in front of the construction site

In May 1981 the Darmstadt district president ordered the land to be expropriated . On October 6, the seven hectare site, which had already been cleared, was occupied by the protest movement and then cleared by the police. Hundreds of people gathered on the site on October 6th, dug an acute-angled trench and built a tower inside the trench. The evacuation was largely peaceful, but the tower could not be evacuated that easily and the occupiers voluntarily left it the following evening. A few days after the clearing, a 2.5 meter high concrete fence was erected to secure the work.

The hut village was evacuated on the morning of November 2, 1981. The eviction itself was peaceful; When thousands gathered in the forest in front of the police barriers during the day, there were several controversial police operations against the protesters. After the Hüttendorf was cleared, construction and clearing work began - under massive police protection. Meanwhile, there were repeated attacks from demonstrations on the concrete wall and police officers. Several attempts by the runway opponents to build new hut villages permanently were repeatedly prevented by the police.

An actually planned reoccupation of the Hüttendorf area on November 7th, based on a rally of tens of thousands of people, was not carried out after disagreements within the movement over the question of violence. Instead of the planned mass overstepping of the police barriers, fifty selected bare-chested demonstrators were allowed onto the premises by the police. Four BI spokesmen then held a fruitless conversation with Interior Minister Ekkehard Gries (FDP) on the cleared area of ​​the hut village about a possible stop of the clearing work until the decision of the State Court (so-called "Naked Saturday").

Demonstrations

On November 14, 1981, more than 120,000 people demonstrated against the runway plans in Wiesbaden. 220,000 signatures for a referendum were given to the regional returning officer . The Frankfurt magistrate director Alexander Schubart called at the rally to "visit" the airport the next day. The next day, opponents of the runway blocked the entrances to the airport for hours. When the police used force against the demonstration, the demonstrators fled to the neighboring motorway , where they set up barricades. To clear the autobahn, the police deployed units deployed by the Federal Border Guard helicopters.

For over a week, the inner city of Frankfurt and other cities in the Rhine-Main area were effectively closed due to daily protest actions. An occupation of the Frankfurt main station was prevented by law enforcement officers. In the late evening of November 3, 1981, a police operation against a runway demonstration took place in Rohrbachstrasse in Frankfurt's Nordend district , in which several demonstrators were seriously injured.

Schubart was sentenced to two years imprisonment on probation because of coercion by the state government ( § 105 , § 125 and § 240 StGB ) and the call to violence and was released from civil service. After ten years of legal battles, it was only eight months on probation and he could remain in the civil service.

The petition for a referendum - which was the last legal possibility to prevent the construction of the runway - ended in 1982 with a negative decision from the Hessian state parliament under Prime Minister Holger Börner ( SPD ) and the rejection because the Hessian State Court was not responsible .

In the following time, the runway movement, which had shrunk after the events in autumn 1981, shifted its activity mainly to weekly, so-called “Sunday walks” to the concrete wall around the building site for “Runway 18 West”. As a result of these weekly demonstrations, attempts were repeatedly made to dismantle the wall, hinder construction work and attack police forces.

After construction

Runway 18 W from the north

On April 12, 1984 the new runway 18 West was opened to traffic; there were no opening ceremonies. On April 14, 1984 around 15,000 people demonstrated against the commissioning of runway 18 West at the wall in the forest.

On November 2, 1987 during a demonstration on the anniversary of the evacuation of the hut village of the demonstration was out with on an anti-nuclear stolen -Demonstration in Hanau on November 8, 1986 police gun shot 14 police officers. Nine officers were hit, the police officers Thorsten Schwalm and Klaus Eichhöfer succumbed to their injuries. That same night, a large wave of searches and arrests began against the entire runway movement. The runway opponents Andreas E. and Frank H. were charged by the federal prosecutor's office as shooters. In 1991 Frank H. was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment for acts unrelated to the fatal shooting. Andreas E. was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in prison. As a result of these events, the remnants of the protest movement against Runway West finally fell apart.

→ Main article : Homicides on Runway West

The concrete wall around the runway was left as a relic of the conflict, a rather rare type of security barrier around a German airport before September 11, 2001 . This wall has since been removed (as of February 2018) and in its place there is currently a triple construction fence, partly secured with NATO barbed wire. There will be a new fence in place of the old wall.

Technical flight data

Airbus A320 ready to take off on runway west

The West runway is designated as '18' because it is oriented almost exactly south, which corresponds to a course angle of 180 degrees. There are only take-offs in the direction of the Upper Rhine Plain , which extends to the south , while the Taunus does not allow departures to the north due to obstacles . Since aircraft should always take off against the wind, take-offs in strong winds from northern directions are only possible to a limited extent or not at all.

Movies

• No Runway West - Trilogy of a Resistance. (1981), documentary by Thomas Frickel et al
• No runway west - a region is fighting back. (1982), documentary by Thomas Frickel et al
• Valuable years. (1989/90), documentary by Thomas Carlé and Gruscha Rode

literature

• Wolf Wetzel : Fatal shots. A documentary narrative. Unrast, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-89771-649-0 .
• Horst Karasek : The village in the Flörsheim forest. A chronicle against the runway west. Luchterhand Verlag, Darmstadt / Neuwied 1981, ISBN 3-472-61368-8 .
• Volker Luley: Nevertheless, the forest belongs to us! of one who set out to unlearn fear. Saalbau Verlag, Offenbach 1981, ISBN 3-922-879-08-X .
• Bruno Struif (Ed.): Art against StartbahnWest. Work of those affected. Anabas, Giessen 1982, ISBN 3-87038-094-2 .
• Ulrich Cremer: Building as a primal experience: illustrated using the example of the hut village against the runway west. E. Weiss Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-88753-009-8 .

Web links

Commons : Startbahn West  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature on Startbahn West in the Hessian Bibliography
• Who does not fight has already lost. evangelisch.de 
• Photos of the runway wall 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ West Runway - The Forest citizens. I: FAZ , November 5, 2010.
2. ↑ BVerwG, judgment of 7 July 1978, Az. 4 C 79/76, BVerwGE 56, 110 ff.
3. ^ H. Karasek: The village in the Flörsheimer forest. Luchterhand, 1982.
4. ↑ M. Himmelträger (Ed.): Startbahn 18 West, pictures of an evacuation. Minotaur, 1982.
5. ↑ The Greens in the Römer (ed.): Frankfurt am Main. Rohrbachstrasse, 1982.
6. ↑ BGH, judgment of November 23, 1983, Az. 3 StR 256/83, BGHSt 32, 165; Full text
7. ↑ hr-online: Startbahn West Chronik. ( Memento of the original from October 1, 2007 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. 
8. ↑ Michael Wilk , in: Redaktionsgruppe Schwarzspecht (Ed.): Turbulenzen. Resistance to the expansion of the Rhein-Main Airport. Stories, facts, facets. Nevertheless, Verlagsgenossenschaft, 2002, p. 14.
9. ↑ Michael Wilk, in: Redaktionsgruppe Schwarzspecht (Ed.): Turbulenzen. Resistance to the expansion of the Rhein-Main Airport. Stories, facts, facets . Nevertheless, Verlagsgenossenschaft eG, 2002, p. 17.
10. ↑ Judgments . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1991, pp. 280 ( online March 18, 1991).

Coordinates: 50 ° 1 ′ 4 ″  N , 8 ° 31 ′ 33 ″  E