Berlin
Police forcefully clear the left car camp “Köpi-Platz” – rioting and attacks on officials
Berlin: Police officers are on Köpenicker Strasse, near the “Köpis”, which has been cleared today
© Paul Zinken / DPA
Left-wing autonomous people have been living in construction trailers on a property in the heart of Berlin for years. Now the owner has arranged for the evacuation. Hundreds of police officers enforce it – not without resistance.
It was one of the last symbolic projects of the left-wing autonomous scene in Berlin: Hundreds of police officers cleared the “Köpi-Platz” car camp in Berlin-Mitte on Friday. In protest against it, several thousand people took to the streets that evening. The mood is very aggressive, said a police spokeswoman. There have been attacks on police officers and some colleagues have been injured. There were also attacks with bars and sometimes serious damage to cars, a police tweet later said. There have been numerous arrests, including with the help of physical force.
The spokeswoman said the demonstration had many more participants than registered, the number was in the upper four-digit range. Several hundred people took to the streets at a solidarity demonstration in Hamburg that evening.
The residents of the trailer next to an old building occupied in 1990 had announced resistance and barricaded themselves behind a high fence that morning. On the street and on Twitter, supporters defiantly repeated “Köpi remains”. With armored evacuation vehicles, however, the officers made it onto the site and finally led the around 40 residents out one after the other.
Berlin: Around 2000 police officers on duty
Strictly speaking, the deployment of up to 2,000 police officers only served to gain access to a bailiff, who in turn implemented a court order to evict the property in favor of the property owner. He had already sued the Berlin Regional Court in June and was awarded the right. An objection by the residents before the higher court failed. The police emphasized on Friday that they had only acted in the course of administrative assistance.
The residents had declared that they would not give up “without a fight” on “Day X”. They presented the car camp as an autonomous space threatened by greed for profit and as a home for dozens of people. Her lawyer Moritz Heusinger said on Friday that the residents were “on the verge of a nervous breakdown” and feared for their livelihoods. How far the resistance would go was difficult to estimate. Shortly before the evacuation, a woman from inside the premises shouted an angry “Fuck off” at the police via megaphone. Some people climbed trees on the premises to stop the police operation.
Police operations had been prepared for days
For their part, the police had been preparing the operation for days and cordoned off the area on Thursday. In addition to Berlin officials, 700 emergency services from other federal states and the federal police were called in. When more and more counter-demonstrators flocked to three registered rallies shortly before the eviction on Friday morning, there were violent scuffles with police officers. “Köpi” supporters denounced the actions of the officials on Twitter. The police reported 21 arrests in a preliminary balance sheet.
From the perspective of the left in the Berlin House of Representatives, the escalation could have been avoided. The left-wing faction announced that the owner had offered the property for sale through brokers and was ready in negotiations to sell it to the state’s own housing association. The purchase price, purchase contract and notary appointment had already been fixed. “Then the owner broke negotiations.” So “the real estate company apparently wants to increase the value of its speculative property by evacuating it,” speculated the left-wing faction.
In court, however, the owner had referred to his building intentions. On Friday afternoon it looked as if he had first asserted his interests. However, according to what was posted on Twitter, the left-wing autonomous scene was still in turmoil.
Solidarity in Hamburg’s left-wing radical scene
In the past few nights, cars had been damaged or set on fire and windows thrown in Berlin time and again. In Hamburg, too, the scene for the solidarity demonstration drummed under the motto “Defendköpi”. According to the police, around 500 demonstrators from the left-wing autonomous scene took to the streets there; accompanied by Bengalo fires and cracking firecrackers. From the left-wing autonomous center “Rote Flora” there were loudspeaker announcements like: “Today we have seen the fascist face of the state and capitalism.”
The building in Berlin next to Wagenplatz, which was occupied in 1990 – the rear building of an old building without a front building – was not affected by the eviction, by the way. In addition to apartments on the upper floors, there is a concert room, a climbing wall, a small sports hall and a cinema in the basement and the lower floors.