Some time ago, I copied some stories on the Lenné triangle from the
internet. All those links are dead now, but I have translated one of
those stories into English for you. It used to be at
http://www.dtv.de/bestand/36149_lese.htm .
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Shortly before five o'clock, minutes before sunrise, the forces of
the state advanced with nine hundred men. Policemen with protecting
helmets jumped out of the vans and encircled the area. Special forces
were preparing to cut through fences. Water canons got into position,
armoured vehicles rolled on to clear away barricades. Loudspeakers
summoned the occupiers to leave the area.
Most of them complied, but in a most unusual way. They climbed over
self-made ladders and piles of metal grids to the top of the wall and
landed on the concrete pipe, four metres above the ground,
unattainable for the guards of law and order in the west. "Stay up
there. Don't jump off just yet", a border guard yelled.
On the East Berlin side, army vehicles approached, and soldiers
spread out jumping mats. "Now", ordered a man in uniform. Then they
jumped off, one after the other. They totaled 182 persons, as counted
by the crew of a British military helicopter. It was July 1st, 1988.
A memorable day: for the first time in the history of the divided
city, Berliners and allied forces witnessed a massive escape from the
west to the east.
"The whole thing lasted perhaps twenty minutes", recalls Stephan Noé.
He was one of those who didn't run away. The GDR, "a repressive
state" in his eyes, had issued a refusal of entry against the
Alternative Liste members of Charlottenburg district council. Noé
waited to be arrested by the West Berlin police. But they were wise
enough to leave the official spokesman of the AL fraction in the
Berlin house of representatives alone. "This annoyed me really bad",
he says, looking back.
Noé expected that they would pick out his person because of his
function. He was the spokesman of the occupiers of the Lenné
triangle, a colourful bunch of environmentalists, "alternatives",
punks, and "autonomists". At times there were more than 300 of them,
camping for five weeks on the four hectare big "no man's land"
between east and west. "Many thought it ridiculous to have such an AL
twerp", says Noé, "but I was one that had a way with words and knew
the right people." So he became the liaison man with the media, with
the politicians, and partly also with the police.
The area, that was picked by the young people for their action, was a
strange place in the four sector city. Situated only a couple of
hundred metres away from the Potsdamer Platz, it was part of the East
Berlin district of Mitte. It stuck out as a sharp triangle, the front
sides being formed by the Lennéstrasse and the Bellevuestrasse, into
the West Berlin district of Tiergarten. When the wall was built, the
GDR had left this spot out. It stayed, legally as part of the East
Sector, on the west side of the wall. This way it became a wasteland,
a biotope with a multitude of rare plants.
For years, the Senate had tried to buy this dead corner to the west
of the "anti-imperialist protection wall" from the GDR, one of the
reasons being the intention to build a motorway along the demarcation
line through this area. But the deal was only made in March, 1988. It
was declared that, as part of a broader agreement on the exchange of
territories, the Lenné triangle would belong to West Berlin as of
July 1st.
The GDR border guards had only just torn down the fence around the
area, as on May 26 environmentalists and members of the civic
initiative group Westtangente moved in, in order to prevent the plans
of the Senate taking place. "It was a mixture of ecological
consciousness and deliberate provocation", Noé describes the
motivation back then. But along came also people that were less
concerned about the protection of flora than they were about the
demonstration of an "alternative way of life", and about a protest
against the capitalist system: anarchists, "autonomists", activists
from the Kreuzberg scene. "For many of them it was an adventurous
playground".
At first, the GDR guard had crossed the border installations and had
tried to force of the first occupiers. But soon afterwards, they left
these people alone. Even when they started to erect tents and huts
and to plant vegetables. "The border guards were standing on their
ladders against the wall and watched how things were", Noé
says. "There were also troops that took pictures or filmed." For the
rest, the communication was limited to short, unimportant chatting.
Right from the start, the politically aware campers had renamed the
territory. The Lenné triangle, named after a Prussian garden
designer, became the "Norbert Kubat triangle". This was the name of a
young "autonomist", that had been arrested during riots the year
before, and had committed suicide in prison.
"If you fancy summer, life, laughter, or discussion", the occupants
advertised in a leaflet, "so come over to us, so that we can keep
this place." The call was duly answered. Day after day, reinforcement
from the leftist-alternative scene appeared. Not only from Berlin,
but also from West Germany. Amongst them were people of no fixed
abode. But also those who left every morning to go to work.
Noé: "Despite of all the differences, there was one minimum
consensus: this land belongs to us. We don't want to leave."
Step by step, the camp was turned into a sort of fortified village.
For fear of neonazis and police, the occupiers dug out ditches around
the 30 or so dwellings, made earthworks and erected barricades. There
was a soup kitchen (later on), a "Rudi Dutschke House", and a path
with the name of "Pest Tangent". Above the settlement, which also had
a watchtower, the black pirates' flag was flying.
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The CDU and FDP Senate was watching these developments for a while,
unable to do anything about it. As long as the agreement on the
territorial exchanges was not in force, no West Berlin policeman
could enter the Lenné triangle. "Not having any grip on things, being
played about by the occupiers that was a problem for the members of
the government in Schöneberg city hall", admits Noé. Especially
because the way the building materials were obtained was not really
above board. The reproach that there were some criminal things going
on could not really be denied."
Senator for the Interior Wilhelm Kewenig was convinced that the
majority of the occupiers weren't environmentalists but "enemies of
the constitution", so he ordered, two weeks after the beginning of
the occupation, that the Lenné triangle would be fenced in. The story
was that it was suspected that there was ammunition from the Second
World War on the land, and the people shouldn't be put at risk. The
real reason was to make the extension of the camp and the growth of
the number of occupiers more difficult.
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The more the police increased its presence around the area, the more
militant the mood in the occupiers' village became. The peaceful "eco-
freaks" tried to no avail to keep the "brainless stone-throwers" from
resorting to violence, like pelting the uniformed with cobblestones
and steel balls. These replied by using their water cannons.
Noé: "this escalated the situation."
The clashes turned into a small war. At night, the police officers
treated the occupiers on unbearably loud music. Nerve-racked, many
occupiers left the area, to have a good sleep at home during the day.
Noé too has been to his home by then, to have a shower and change his
soaked clothes for dry ones. "You had to bring new clothes all the
time."
The stand-off became steadily severe and aggressive. The occupiers
took to molotov cocktails, catapults, and fireworks, and the state
powers used tear gas. There were wounded people on both sides. After
almost two hours of firing into the area, the Eastern border guards
had enough of it. One officer, with a protecting mask on his face,
ordered over a megaphone the Western police to "immediately cease"
shooting into the sovereign territory of the GDR.
The closer the date of July 1st, the more the occupiers realised that
the days of their "police-free zone" were numbered. Everybody knew
that the Senate wanted to evacuate the village. "Next week, we'll
come over to you", some shouted to the GDR border guards. "Put that
out of your heads", the reply came promptly.
Why the Eastern leaders finally decided to help the beleaguered
occupiers, even Noé doesn't know. Maybe it was the chance to appear
in the eyes of the general public as saviours in the hour of need.
Maybe it was also the favourable occasion to depict the Senate as
being responsible for a "repressive police force". "I definitely do
not think that it was out of pure compassion."
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Peter