Attempts to squat Tempelhof Airport - Berlin

Passing the redundant airport just now I saw the aftermath of the demo and the attempted squatting of it. It is a vast area awaiting new use and the Berlin government is looking forward to some serious money. A clash of interests is in the making and will put Neukölln again on the map.

Quite so and it got rather messy after 16:00. The Police were not taking any nonsense. The people there all seemed rather confused apart from them who thought it was the first of May all over again. It was one of the more pointless Demos I have ever attended as it's intentions were to transform the place into a Guinness Book Of Records dog toilet... for all.

It didn't make the record book then... ?

No, not in the slightest. Not one person made it. The protestors were useless. God forbid the country ever needed a real revolution as they were all pretty crap. I must however pay tribute to the well pierced family trying to throw their baby over the fence and understand how aggrieved they were at spilling their bottle of Sternberg in the process.

i heard some people got through. they drove through the fence in a car with wings.

i don't agree that it was pointless, yes everyone was a bit confused, there was no real plan of action that was known to all, but the fact that so many people turned out speaks for itself (5,000 according to the squat tempelhof blog). i was personally pretty disgusted to see the police throwing people to the floor for standing next to a fence, dancing in the street, or spraying pepper spray in the eyes of someone playing a drum. also i saw a police van nearly knock a girl off a bike, not once, but twice, the second time being an attempted push to the face from the passenger side as they sped past. regarding the 1st of may comment, i was there a good 6 hours, covered the whole boundary and street routes and didn't see one (glass) bottle or stone thrown

in my opinion it's not important whether anyone got in or not, i don't even believe that was the real motive for action, it was about raising awareness, encouraging people to take an interest in how this land will be developed and whether said development is a fair balance between public and private interests. the way this field was so impatiently "defended" through the constant herding through the streets of demo-goers was somewhat inappropriate. also the photo of the cop in civvy clothes pulling a gun on someone is truly heartbreaking.

here are some amazing images http://www.demotix.com/news/berliners-atte...airport-protest

The human snowplow blew my mind, just imagine the piles of crippled people . They should really start working on the human vacuum cleaner where you get sucked into a cell.

Fucking stupid twatty students sitting on the floor like they're taking part in something so earth-shatteringly important that they feel the need to put their stupid hoods up over their stupid heads. Twats!

It was a tremendous show of stupidity that cost Berlin another 500,000€ in police overtime the city doesn't have. The project was set up by idiots who couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery. It was a distraction.

1,8 million euro according to the tagesspiegel, and to HAL, seeing as you were there, you're as responsible for the cost to city as the "idiots" who organised it. well done and thanks for taking part

Nothing to do with nothing... the original builders of Flughafen Tempelhof (the nazis) planned that the airport would be shut down (due to safety and pollution concerns of an airport being located in a central metro area) by 1952 and turned into a huge carnival type of park (ala Tivoli in Copenhagen)

From the very beginning, it was slotted to be closed.

Wonder why the students dont protest something REAL, as they are on their way to the flughafen to go on record with their 200€ jeans, floppy haircuts and latest wannabe hollywood fashion, they step over and ignore the homeless in their own city.

does anyone ever take these lifelong students seriously?

I was there yesterday taking photos and regardless of what everything thinks of the reasoning, the police were far too heavy handed.

i'm sorry but where is it stated this was a student only protest? i'm not a student and i was there, HAL, are you a student? one of the main organisers of the event is a quite old man of maybe, his name escapes me, but with short white hair and his C&A pastel blue pullover, i don't think he fit your student description. regarding helping the homeless, one of the suggested items in the ST manifesto was to use the land for super cheap housing and wagendorf type accommodation.

What? Like the Govt. raising the cost of Uni. Tuition. - Students start nationwide education strikes

well said!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY1H_87PX9U

here too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFKJ8-4o9v8...feature=related

yes, look at them all with their floppy hair, 200€ jeans, and "hollywood fashions"

Not sure if any of you are interested, but I took these photos of the day

http://www.flickr.com/photos/simmster/sets...57620103307441/

' 1,8 million euro according to the tagesspiegel, and to HAL, seeing as you were there, you're as responsible for the cost to city as the "idiots" who organised it. well done and thanks for taking part '.

I didn't take part because as far as I'm concerned the airport should be an airport not the biggest dog toilet in Europe. It's a wonderful asset for the area. I just filmed and took pics of violent clueless protestors who were causing damage to local people's property and attacking the cops for no apparent reason apart from wanting to shake a fence and dress up as a clown. The police weren't going to take people putting them on fire and smashing bottles in their faces because of some Urban Planning Dispute. If you have a problem go and wreck the lord mayor of Berlin's area and not mine.

I sold my material and as a result when I pay my taxes it will go back into the kitty. I love the world in motion.

Oh and Sim taking pictures of cops at demo's...? Don't give up the day job.

yes but HAL, you missed the point, by you being there you WERE taking part. just the same as the police who stand around with cameras are taking part. everyone who was there for the cause, passing by and stayed for a while to look, or making money or simply recreation from filming or taking photos was taking part. the percentage of people who were just there to take photos or film was in my opinion quite large and if that percentage hadn't turned up then there would be a smaller number of people there and therefore would have logically required less police presence, costing less of our taxes, but also having less of an impact because of the smaller number of people. so i repeat, well done and thanks for your efforts, all be them a little bit mercenary.

oh and i forgot: "the airport should be an airport", afraid to say that's not possible anymore, therefore the land is now being used for absolutely nothing at all other than growing pretty brown looking grass. i hope you voted to keep tempelhof open when you had the chance, shame enough people didn't.

Interesting.. I didn't know the Nazi Govt. was still in power in 1952...

Are you suggesting that if only a crowd of photographers had shown up a police presence would have been required???

Yeah like breathing is taking part, making tea, washing your face and having a shave... Apart from that it still didn't change the fact demo was rubbish and meant nothing apart from general agro for the local people.

no, i didn't suggest that at all. do you want to read my post again if you didn't understand it? but come to mention it, if only a crowd of photographers had shown up then they would have sent the majority of the 1,000s of police, police vans, water cannons, etc. home pretty quickly.

so you were the guy on the demo with the video camera, cut throat razor and tea pot, i wondered what that was all about. man your logic sucks.

I like it when the police use force... that's why we have them.

uh ur right , I didnt understand your point , however thanks very much for allowing me to continually have "my logic" since by virtue of you squatting on this thread I was rather concerned that you might try to appropriate it - rather like ur chums.

Not entirely sure what you meant by this, but I didn't do anything for pay yesterday, obviously. Just something to do on a Saturday. Hopefully you're not such a dick in real life, and I'm sorry that you made any money at the weekend.

you're welcome.

are you implying i'm squatting on this thread in the sense of i don't have a right to be here or that i'm taking a shit on certain items contained in aforementioned thread?

I'm impressed that we share a common understanding of the term "squat".

To me that reads that when the Nazis were in power and had built the airport, they expected it to serve a purpose until ~ 1952 which would then be turned into a carnival, not that the Nazi Govt. decided in 1952 to scrap it.

People are such pendents on this forum. My 2 cents the whole Demo was pathetic pathetic pathetic pathetic and very German in a strange way. It's not the way I would squat an airport. Simmie great went along an "witnessed" the demo. thanks to you and others who. I would have been there myself. But I already had seen the pathetic education demo earlier in the week I started a tread about it

If the then Nazi Gov then thought the building would be obsolete in 1952 then maybe they were right. It is a accident of history it is open this long. As for the referendum. I would have voted for the airport to say open. If I got a registration card for it, to but just like in the European elections I was denied this. Apparently you have to take the time to find some amt somewhere and registrar.

Wowo on other hand want to sell the massive complex so Berlin can pay off its massive debts. Be fore the referendum happened Templehof was already in the government list for property's for sell.

You cant build houses on it as Berlin has too empty property's already. And not enough jobs for the people to move into them to afford them, even if they were built. Best plan I think is a science and development center for young companys and start ups, a tax free zone to create jobs in Berlin and an aircraft museum. Occasionally using the runway. Then later the land as a land bank to keep the house prices undercontrol. A new vital university to retrain the jobless of Berlin.

As for the demo was pathetic its like a dog chasing a car what is he going to do with it when he catches it. It would turn in to a dog toilet in weeks like Tacheles. Is there going to me the same amount of demonstration when Kunsthaus Tacheles finally closes.

They planned lots of things that didn't quite work out as originally expected.

The whole Reich was supposed to run until 2,933, but only made it 1.2% of the way there.

At least the runway was usable for another 50-plus years.

I went to the presentation evening in B-Lage and it wsa great from an anti-capitalist standpoint. But the problem is the area has too much freetime and no money. Work chances must be offered, which can capture the desire of the people for alternative styles of making money and retaining a laid back social environment. ie a beer bottle swigging high income earner living in a 5 euro sqm flat which he. she does up oneself and creates value for oneself.
Dosh or exchange of values have to take place to keep things moving. You have to think of the people who want to live here for the next 30 years. But we have to stop the short term speculators as well.

un, it was their original plan... they thought they would be in power (if i recall, they thought they would last at least 1K years)... ???

Damn! I missed another useless protest. I have no excuse for not attending--as a photographer. I even saw posters all over F'hain saying 'Have you ever sqatted an airport?' in English.

Organizers, future advice: if you don't want 50,000 cops to show up, don't advertise your squatter's ball all over town. Oh, yeah, they want cops to show up and crack their skulls. It gives them 'street cred.'

As for the photo of the girl in the clown getup (red wig, yellow clothes): I think she's a McDonald's spy.

What's this about the price of the cops and the cost to the city? That's their job. That's all they do in Berlin. I mean, if this were a respectable American town with murder, rape and mayhem, these lazy pussy Berlin cops would REALLY have to earn their money...

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