It’s six minutes past twelve when the policeman knocks on the window for the first time. The officer is a “high-altitude rescuer,” a specialist in operations like this: bringing an unknown number of tree house residents who live ten meters above the ground in a wooden hut against their will and unharmed to the ground of reality. And to advance something against which the climate fighters are risking their lives – the destruction of “Lützi”, the advance of the lignite excavators.
This operation has been running on the eastern edge of the hamlet for more than two hours. There are tall beeches here – and the activists have planted more than a dozen tree houses in the branches since summer 2020. The squatters have christened this part of the protest village the “terraced house settlement,” and the police now want to get to one of the better objects with the help of two lifting platforms: “House megalomania” is the name of the shed with an oven and glass window, says a camp resident – because the large banner on the side signaling what the government is risking with the coal: “This is not deforestation,” it says, “this is ‘ne world deforestation.”
Luisa Neubauer and a Greenpeace board are surrounded by police officers
It’s day two of the eviction, the harder part begins. Not only because of the constant rain and the wind that swept across the flat country on Thursday. The climate is getting rougher: around noon, on the fringes of a demonstration of several hundred participants, there is an altercation with the police. At least one police officer reportedly used pepper spray. On a photo, which is published on Twitter, is the moment to see. The protest march started in neighboring Keyenberg in the morning; that is about 3.5 kilometers from Lützerath. The “Fridays for Future” activist Luisa Neubauer and Greenpeace board member Martin Kaiser are also surrounded by police officers. A spokesman for the Aachen police says that more than 200 people suddenly pushed towards the edge of the opencast mine in Lützerath; there it goes down 30 meters. One had to react in order not to endanger the demonstrators.
In addition, the squatters from the protest camp announced in the afternoon that there would be a tunnel system under Lützerath in which people held out. They post about the alleged underground passages Video. The police are investigating the claim; if it were correct, it would probably delay the eviction very much. It also becomes known that activists Party headquarters of the Greens in Düsseldorf occupy. They are demanding a moratorium on the eviction from NRW Economics Minister Mona Neubaur (Greens). In Flensburg the regional office is occupied by Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens).
In Lützerath, masked activists throw bottles and Bengalos, apples and oranges at the police officers in the morning. The officials withdraw, they will only come back in the afternoon. After sunrise they have already cleared the former farm of Eckardt Heukamp, the home of the last farmer in the village. Almost fifty people had barricaded themselves there since Tuesday night. Thursday around ten o’clock all squatters leave peacefully.
The residents of “Haus Megalomania” are far from that far. The rescuers have been trying to get closer since ten o’clock. Blue nets are hanging in front of the tree house, and two climbers in white painting suits are doing gymnastics in them. The activists are careful and secure themselves with carabiners. But if the “height rescuers” cut one of the nets or the rope over to the next tree house, one of the young men could fall.
The mountain rescuers get six squatters from the “house megalomania”
So be careful. The officials on the lifting platforms cut off branches and slowly feel their way forward. The activists have to climb higher and higher, after all they are standing on the narrow porch of the tree house – and abseil down to the protest village. It is less an escape than a change of position: three hours later, the police officers will clear the six-meter-high wooden frame on which the two men are now nesting.
In front of “Haus Megalomania” an excavator clears the street on behalf of RWE, the energy company: Heavy steel barricades, the wooden legs of overturned tripods, undergrowth, the nets – everything is towed away by a tractor with a trailer. A police officer says that the activists are cautious – but some climate fighters are miserably equipped, and several young people have had to be brought down “at the stage of dangerous exhaustion”.
In the meantime, the first rescuer is standing on a beam of the tree house. The door is barricaded, but after ten minutes of using a hammer and pry bar, slabs of wood and foam fall from the tree. The six occupiers offer no resistance. They are brought down individually together with their sleeping bags and suitcases. A woman has an injured foot and is carried away. It dawns. Day three of the evacuation follows on Friday.