Squatting in Hamburg
The modern political squatting movement began in Hamburg, Germany, when Neue Große Bergstraße 226 was occupied in 1970. Squatters wanted to provide housing for themselves amongst other demands such as preventing buildings from being demolished and finding space for cultural activities. The Hafenstraße buildings were first occupied in 1981 and were finally legalized after a long political struggle in 1995. The still extant Rote Flora self-managed social centre was occupied in 1989. Squatting actions continue into the present; more recent attempts are quickly evicted, although the Gängeviertel buildings were squatted and legalized in the 2010s.
On 6 October 1970, thirty hippies squatted a derelict hotel on Neue Große Bergstraße 226 in Hamburg. They were immediately evicted by police and then the owner decided to rent out rooms to them for 60 Deutsche Marks each until the building was demolished. The hippies were again evicted by the police one month later on the grounds that petty crime in the area had increased and then occupied a house at Funkstrasse 18 in Altona.[1]
Students squatted two houses in the Karolinenviertel in December and were evicted a day later. The Siechenhauses in St. Georg was occupied for four days and then evicted.[1]: 7–21 The University of Hamburg owned buildings at Schlump in the borough of Eimsbüttel. It demolished some but was prevented from knocking down the Schröderstift building by a student occupation in 1971. A tenants group was formed and made a deal with the city council, which also wanted to preserve the monumental building.[2]
In 1973, Der Spiegel reported that around 60 squatters had barricaded themselves inside Ekhofstrasse 39, in the Hohenfelde district. Participants had come from Berlin, Bremen and Frankfurt; the police and the owner decided not to react, hoping that the protest would dwindle.[3] The squatters were students, workers and members of the Proletarian Front (Proletarischen Front) who wanted to provide themselves with housing.[4]: 10 Karl-Heinz Dellwo took part in the Ekhof occupation and later joined the Red Army Faction.[1]: 290 The occupation of Haynstraße 1-3 in 1975 was carried out by existing tenants and therefore was not strictly squatting, but the building was linked to the squatters movement and has resisted speculators for over forty years.[5][6]
During the 1980s, a squatters movement existed in Hamburg and had links to Berlin and also Amsterdam.[7] In order to prevent its growth, the state minister Alfons Pawelczyk decided that no squat in Hamburg would be permitted to last longer than 24 hours and thus many attempts at occupation were quickly evicted.[8]: 25
In 1983, the Hamburger Abendblatt recorded that 57 squatters had been arrested and were on trial for occupying a former police station at Billstedt in Hamburg-Mitte, the previous year. The squatters were fined.[9] Amongst the arrestees was a Grün-Alternative Liste Hamburg (GAL) politician.[10]
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