Berlin squat scene grinds to an end as yuppies move in (News Feature)

By Helen Livingstone Feb 2, 2011, 16:27 GMT

Berlin - It was a typical grey Berlin morning when German police on Wednesday used an axe and a battering ram to break down the door of one of the city's last remaining squats.

They were prepared for violence.

'When 1,000 armed policemen turn up, there's no peaceful solution,' one of the squatters at Liebigstrasse 14, located in the heart of the east Berlin district of Friedrichshain, told reporters the day before.

At the weekend 40 police officers were injured at a demonstration in support of the squatters attended by over 1,000 and 17 people were arrested.

The area which formerly made up East Berlin is known for its radical left-wing scene. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many houses there were taken over by squatters, including punks and artists, hoping to set up alternative communities.

But as the 1990s wore on, more and more were evicted as the buildings were sold to private owners. One of the most infamous evictions took place in 1990 in Mainzerstrasse, a few streets away from 'Liebig 14.' The street battles lasted three days and more than 400 people were arrested.

Liebigstrasse 14 was occupied in 1990 and the squatters later received tenancy agreements. But when the house was sold at the end of the 1990s they were given notice. After several court battles they were given until February 2 to leave.

On Wednesday the squat's balconies bristled with barbed wire and metal rods. Sympathizers in next-door buildings heckled police through loudspeakers and banged pots and pans.

'We're all staying,' they chanted.

The 2,500 police officers deployed around the area had closed off the adjoining streets, where hundreds of left-wing activists had gathered. Clashes erupted as protesters threw glass bottles and stones at police, injuring several.

But protesters weren't just there to support the squatters. The demonstrations are also a cry of protest against rising rents and the gentrification of an area which has long been the stamping ground of those seeking a more alternative lifestyle.

'Living space, not investor space,' reads one banner. Prices have indeed been rising steadily in areas of Berlin that were previously considered alternative and have gradually become 'yuppified.'

A report by the property consultancy firm F + B showed that rents in districts neighbouring Friedrchshain - Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte - had increased in the last three years by as much as 15 per cent.

Prenzlauer Berg in particular, is infamous for having gone from being the grungy preserve of young artists and lefties in the 1990s to being home to organic-food eating families and up-and-coming professionals.

'We have to get used to the fact that Berlin is going to get more expensive in lots of areas,' Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit said recently. But that wouldn't be a problem he said, 'if incomes increase in parallel.'

Not all Friedrichshain residents support the protests, though many can sympathize.

'I don't agree with the squatters, what they're doing is illegal,' says Markus Felten, a 28-year-old trainee lawyer. 'But I can understand people who want to show their frustration. Rents are getting too high.'

The building in which he lives, on Frankfurter Alle, which runs through the heart of Friedrichshain, is owned by a British investment group which spent thousands of euros renovating each flat.

'I don't think that it's a bad thing in principle that money is being spent on a part of the city that's previously been very neglected,' he says. 'It brings life to the place.'

Once inside Liebig 14, it took police on Wednesday over five hours to overcome the various barricades the squatters had erected, which included ripping out the staircases and building new walls. They eventually arrested nine who had remained behind in the building.

'Don't be afraid: it's only gentrification,' a slogan scrawled on a nearby building read.

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