8 Squatting and Gentrification in East Germany since 1989/90 Andrej Holm and Armin Kuhn

The wave of squatting that started in the GDR just a few weeks after the Berlin Wall came down lasted well into the 1990s and has left deep marks both on the biographies of countless squatters and their supporters and on the development of affected urban neighbourhoods. In East Berlin alone, around 150 cases of squatting were registered during a single year. During the summer of 1990, the peak of this squatting wave, around 120 squats existed concurrently. The squatter scene of Potsdam, a city of 120,000 inhabitants, celebrated its status as the ‘squatter capital’ with 35 squats at one point in 1991 and 60 squats in total during that year.1 Squatting achieved a similar scale in Leipzig. The neighbourhood of Connewitz became virtually synonymous with the alternative movements that sprang up around the squats. By 1994, there were around 20 squats in Dresden’s Äußere Neustadt, already a neighbourhood with an alternative flair during GDR times.2 At times, the appropriation of empty buildings via squatting also left its impact on the centres of medium-sized cities such as Rostock, Halle, Magdeburg, Karl-Marx-Stadt/Chemnitz, Jena, Dessau, Gera, Halle and Weimar.3 With their so-called info shops, pubs, book shops, clubs, concert venues, rehearsal rooms and workshops, these squats became attractive centres for those who wished to continue a long tradition of anti-fascist activism and for members of the autonomist left, but also for young people from the neighbourhood, artists, drop outs and the simply adventurous.4 And they became the visible symbols of the beginnings of change in the neighbourhood. The legalisation of a majority of these squats in the early 1990s provided their residents with long-term tenancy and turned the former squats into lasting companions of East German urban development. Yet, what

level of influence did the squats exert on urban development? How did squatting impact on the changes in urban neighbourhoods over the long term? What role did squatter movements play in urban politics?

While the close link between squatting and questions of urban politics and development is quite obvious, there is not much literature with an explicit focus on the relationship between squatting and urban politics. Hans Pruijt, who develops a typology of squatting, highlights the significance of “conservational squatting” and urban protest movements for the preservation of historical building structures.5 In our own case study of Berlin, the significance of the 1980/81 West Berlin squats for enacting a new regime of urban renewal is established.6 Studies on New York’s Lower Eastside demonstrate the active role taken by squatters during anti-gentrification protests around Tomkins Square.7 From the perspective of the squatter movement, the act of squatting and the refusal to pay rent are considered a disruption of the chain of real estate valorisation. Some squatters understand themselves as part of an urban political protest movement and as practical “alternatives to capitalism”.8

In the journalistic discourse, a contrasting viewpoint has become established: one that interprets the squats as part, or even driving force, of symbolic regeneration. An online newspaper “for London’s business community” quotes a former squatter who states that “gentrification begins with squatting”. Squatting appeared as “an extension of the old maxim that artists move to an area because it’s affordable, make it cool, and then the affluent ones arrive”.9 A few academic studies also observe an “incorporation into gentrification” in relation to protest, subcultures and squatting.10 The argument frequently rests solely on the symbolic effects of squatting, sub-cultural activities and protest in transforming neighbourhoods into experiential spaces of consumption. In this reasoning, squats and squatters become pioneers of gentrification due to their habitus and alternative

infrastructures that simply create the particular non-conformist and authentic urbanity that the new middle classes increasingly desire.11 The cynical implication of such views – ‘regeneration is your own fault’ – is far too often used in countering anti-gentrification campaigns.

Squats apparently play an ambiguous role in the context of gentrification research: while a cultural perspective considers them as part of a process of symbolic regeneration, perspectives leaning on political economical tend to see them as disruptions and counter movements. Drawing on the example of squatting in East German cities during the early 1990s, we would like to find out whether squatter movements contributed to the symbolic regeneration of their neighbourhoods, which role the squats played for the valorisation of surrounding real estate, and how the squatter movements positioned themselves within urban political conflicts. For this endeavour, East German squats are a well-suited case study: the centres of squatting were exactly in those neighbourhoods that today lie at the heart of gentrification debates.

CONTEXTS AND CONDITIONS OF SQUATTING AND GENTRIFICATION

The squatter movement in East Germany and the changes of city centre neighbourhoods were strongly influenced by the specific conditions of urban development before and after the Wende12 of 1989/90. De facto mass squatting via the silent appropriation of empty flats during the 1980s and then the open and assertive type of squatting during the Wende period were facilitated by high levels of vacancy as a result of the GDR’s housing policy that was fixated on new buildings and experienced a creeping loss of the legitimacy of state institutions at the local level. These developments were comparable to the crises of Fordist urban development models in West Germany and Western Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. The hasty joining up of the two German states and

a comprehensive transfer of institutions from West to East ended a brief period of political openness and led to an accelerated neo-liberalism of urban politics at the start of the 1990s. A wave of radical privatisation and professionalization of ownership structures ensured that property with unsettled ownership claims was transferred into market structures. The establishment of West German models of property rehabilitation and subsidies created massive incentives for investments into urban renewal. It was only from the late 1990s onwards that this form of urban renewal began to lead to a process of gentrification, which had been delayed by large-scale out-migration during the period immediately following the Wende.

The legacy of urban development policy Based on the principles of socialist urban development, the construction and housing policies of the GDR were, especially since the 1970s, focused on urban expansion via large-scale housing developments. This policy was intended to overcome existing shortages and to secure a supply of modern housing units.13 This target-driven approach, in reality, meant further centralisation and industrialisation of the housing construction sector, while neglecting the existing building stock. The old housing stock originating from around 1900 became culturally devalued due to a longstanding criticism of large, poor quality tenements, the so-called Mietskaserne (literally ‘tenement barracks’) appeared as a mere legacy of capitalist society.14 Strategies for expansion were only in the 1980s supplemented with programmes focused on inner-city urban renewal. This turn towards preservation came too late for many cities. Vacancy levels in old buildings rose further with the exodus of more than a million of East Germans to West Germany following the fall of the Wall. This development created the material conditions for the wave of squatting that began all over the country. The Wende was also a consequence of a far-reaching loss of legitimacy that state institutions experienced including the police, local authorities and those in charge of housing supply. The societal mood for change put a question mark over the future of these institutions and also unsettled their employees.15 This political vacuum between the autumn of 1989 and the GDR’s

joining the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990 was a second pre-condition to facilitate the massive squatting in East German cities. A third pre-condition was the absence of private owners. The nationalisation of housing supply in the GDR had transferred the management of large parts of the old housing stock to the Communal Housing Associations (KWV).16 When they became squats, most buildings were under public management but with unresolved ownership. With the German Unification Treaty and its principle of restitution, real estate property expropriated under the GDR was to be returned to former owners or their heirs, so as to “undo injustice caused by the separation”.17 With 85 percent of real estate property affected, this policy was particularly relevant to neighbourhoods with old housing stock – which were also the centres of the squatter movement.18 Up to 1992, restitution claims were issued for more than two million properties (buildings and land) across East Germany.19 For many inner city properties, the time-consuming process of settling claims led to a situation where no one was in a position to exercise any power of disposition. Many squats were able to make use of this gap between a delegitimized public administration that lacked interest and the not yet legally manifest powers of private owners. They were able to legalise their position by signing lease agreements with the public housing associations that were in a process of transition. Occasionally, these agreements proved legally durable beyond the settlement of ownership cases and secured the houses for the former squatters in the long term.

Urban development and gentrification in East Germany since 1990 With the settlement of almost 1.7 million restitution claims until the end of 1996,20 a fundamental change in property ownership took place. In neighbourhoods with primarily old housing stock, more than 80 percent of real-estate property was now under private ownership. The majority of this restituted property was sold within one year. This had to do with heirs often being dispersed and unable to manage run-down buildings while at the same time showing much more of an interest in benefitting from a real estate market that was heating up.21 It was only as a result of this process of privatisation (via restitution) and professionalization (via sale) that valorisation interests that were

typical of capitalist urban development became dominant. From the mid-1990s onwards, the development of inner city neighbourhoods, with their poor housing standards and damaged building structures, became dependent on their private owners’ investment strategies. Taking the perspective of gentrification research, we are able to identify this situation as a rent gap produced by the state and the result of both decades of neglect and the re-establishment of private ownership.

Mass migration to West Germany22 and processes of subsequent suburbanisation led to a massive over-supply of housing in many regions.23 The particularities of shrinking cities presented a key challenge for urban development. Rents stagnated for many years and, with a surplus housing supply, socio-geographic change followed lifestyle choices rather than market mechanisms. High levels of vacancy characterised urban development until the 2000s, and the physical upgrading of neighbourhoods had little impact on rent levels.24 If research mentioned ‘gentrification’ at all, it used the term with a number of provisos.25 Neologisms such as ‘divided gentrification’,26 ‘soft gentrification’,27 ‘limited gentrification’,28 and ‘gentrification without losers’29 are symptomatic of the difficulties in relating a concept that originated in British and American research to East German cities.

From the early 1990s onwards, almost all East German cities designated so-called rehabilitation areas, providing material resources and additional staff to implement aims of urban renewal.30 The East Germany of the 1990s witnessed the emergence of an incentivised economy of urban renewal, further underpinned by special depreciation allowances that were in place until 1998. This specific economy of urban renewal led to a modernisation of the housing stock, quite independent of demand and local income structures. This differed from classic gentrification processes in that the physical renewal and economic investment rationale were decoupled from profitability. These conditions saw urban development in most East German cities and towns characterised by a

combination of shrinkage, rehabilitation and suburbanisation throughout the 1990s. Those operating on the real estate market called inner city areas that were undergoing modernisation ‘excess supply’ and ‘renter’s markets’, where, without rent rises, the owners’ market powers remained largely absent. The social position of the rehabilitation areas only began to change once population figures consolidated showing an increasing in-migration from 2000 onwards. Rising rents and early signs of an economically selective in-migration, as a consequence of re-urbanisation, began to slowly manifest themselves in terms of an upgrading of the social structure.31 Only at this point had a gentrification tendency been realised – although a few neighbourhoods in East Berlin and Dresden Neustadt remained exceptional as a result of changing economic and demographic conditions rather than neighbourhood specific factors.

SQUATTING AND GENTRIFICATION IN LEIPZIG, BERLIN, DRESDEN AND POTSDAM

The manner in which the squats, the core areas of rehabilitation and the subsequent processes of gentrification interacted geographically hint at a shared starting point: vacancies and decay of inner city old housing formed the pre-conditions for squatting on a large scale and the reason for designating rehabilitation areas. Our four case studies focus on the role of squatting in the particular, city-specific dynamics of upgrading. The relationship between squatting and gentrification encompasses different dimensions in Leipzig-Connewitz, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, Dresden-Neustadt, and Potsdam City Centre. Our analysis of the role that squats played for realising property values – their possible contribution to the symbolic regeneration of urban neighbourhoods as well as their position in urban political conflicts – demonstrates that squatting and gentrification were not causally related despite their geographical overlap.

Leipzig Connewitz: squatter myths and tacit veto powers The urban neighbourhood of Connewitz, with currently roughly 17,000 inhabitants, lies directly adjacent to the south of Leipzig’s urban core and is made up of Gründerzeit housing stock, which by the late 1980s was in a desolate condition with high levels of vacancy. Parts of Connewitz were designated rehabilitation areas in 1991 and have been completely modernised since. Rent levels have nevertheless remained low right across the housing market, which was also the case elsewhere in a city characterised by out-migration and deindustrialisation – despite “no other place having invested, built and rehabilitated as much” as Leipzig.32 Since 2000, distinct rent rises could be observed, particularly in the more upmarket residential areas, due to a steady population increase of almost 40 per cent since 1990.33 Rents in Connewitz still sit just below the average in Leipzig, but here, too, the times of a slow housing market seem almost over.34 Those moving into the city are “relatively young, form small households, possess higher levels of educational qualification and lead an alternative lifestyle’.35 By way of these visible changes and new building projects, the buzzword of gentrification arrived in Leipzig, more than 20 years after the Wende.36 Squatting in Connewitz, as in other cities, was conducted in the 1980s tradition of “residing illicitly”37. Demolition plans that were developed in the mid-1980s facilitated the expansion of an alternative scene around the illegal appropriation of living space.38 The demolition plans were abandoned at the ‘People’s Construction Conference’ in January 1990, which was organised by citizen initiatives and housing experts and had more than 1,000 participants. Equipped with such support, activists of the urban neighbourhood initiatives and the East German civil rights movement occupied in short succession fourteen houses in Stöckartstraße and adjacent streets in March 1990. ‘Connewitz’s Alternative’, a newly founded association, saw itself as a neighbourhood self-help project and campaigned for the legalisation of the squats, but soon fell apart over internal tensions and disagreement over the choice of means in the defence against repeated Nazi attacks.39 Many of the first-time squatters left.40 Subsequent squatter groups were young people from a sub-cultural

milieu, who saw themselves as belonging to the autonomist or radical left, as well as ‘crash kids’ whose car races conducted with stolen vehicles provoked conflict with the police and with the city’s petty criminals. The situation escalated in November 1992 with an altercation that resulted in the police using firearms. Such incidents led to the myth of a militant Connewitz and put the pressure on the local authorities to abandon their previous ‘wait and see’ approach. A hastily drawn up policy called “Leipziger Linie” defined future engagement with squats and squatters: “The city will sign contracts with peaceful squatters but their criminal milieu will not be tolerated”.41 In contracts signed soon thereafter, existing squats were obliged to take responsibility for “securing public order and safety”42; future squats were to be evicted immediately. From then on there were only a few isolated new occupations, most of them promptly evicted. Mobilising for the defence of those squats threatened with eviction culminated in massive protests and a ‘squatter congress’ in 1995. Leipzig Council decided in 1996 to buy fourteen occupied buildings in Connewitz and transfer them to the Alternative Housing Association Connewitz43 (AWC), formed by the squatters themselves to avoid a renewed escalation at a time when initial fixed-term contracts were coming to an end. Subsequently, the activities of Leipzig’s squatter movement declined and moved to other neighbourhoods.

The AWC’s building constitute below one percent of the neighbourhood’s housing stock but, due to their appeal and geographical concentration, continue to have a strong impact on the area around Stockartstraße. With the purchase of the buildings and granting of long-term leases, the city found an approach that removed the buildings permanently from the market while at the same time conforming to market structures.44 During the long period that the housing market was very slow, the squats had been primarily considered as offering ‘free spaces’ for sub-cultural activities and collective living. These spaces were often provided on the condition of helping to maintain the buildings. The economic advantage for the squatters only emerged relatively late when rent levels rose elsewhere in Connewitz.45 At the same time, the political and in particular economic situation

enabled collective forms of living beyond squatting – through purchase, leases and user contracts, for instance in the case of the 16 buildings that were to function as ‘guardian houses’ and obtained five-year lease agreements at cost level in return for maintenance.46 Other groups were able to set up a total of around 50 co-operatives, which ensured long-term shared housing projects.47

Despite their low total numbers, the squats proved central to Connewitz’s political and cultural identity that emerged in the early 1990s. Together with clubs like Werk II and Distillery (the venues for Leipzig’s first techno parties) and the self-organised youth cultural centre Conne Island, they established Connewitz’s lasting reputation as a sub-cultural centre. From 1992 the “Connewitz myth” – perceived in parts of the scene as an overestimation of one’s own militancy and power – was stylised as a ‘potential for aggression that could be mobilised at any time’48; on the other hand, it was used by law-and-order hawks in politics and the media to repeat warnings against what came to be called the “lawless space of Connewitz”.49 The city administration responded with attempts to close down sub-cultural venues or to move them to other parts of the city in order to disperse the local scene, initially without much success. This provoked protests and mobilisations that strengthened the scene’s local links and established Connewitz’s lasting reputation of militancy and rebelliousness beyond the city’s boundaries. From the mid-1990s onwards the administration began to change their approach. Public support from leading councillors and a decision to continue the funding for existing institutions and cultural projects50 indicates a transition from a strategy of containment.

The relationship between Connewitz’s squatter movement and the local administration did not progress uniformly and fluctuated over time. During the Wende, the local administration exercised tolerance towards the squatters who were perceived by their neighbourhood and the civil rights movement as “allies in the fight against demolition”.51 The escalations around the ‘crash kids’ and

the street battles of 1992 led to a hardening of positions so that the administration aimed its Leipziger Linie and the strategy of decentralisation at containment, control, and repression. This approach led to a radicalisation, which meant for the squatters that they chose to focus solely on the defence of their buildings. Long-term security for these buildings and a laissez-faire policy towards the alternative movement that continues to this day – an agreement of toleration – originate in the struggles of 1992. From the mid-1990s onwards, the municipal Youth Welfare Office and the Department of Culture in particular have taken a position of administrative support for the squats, thus handing them a tacit veto power in urban-politics decisions concerning the area. This change in strategy was also based on a desire to further the provision of cultural initiatives beyond the existing mainstream, which were considered conducive to the desired in-migration of young households. In return, the squatters, together with the AWC and various other associations, became actual institutional partners that received funding for urban rehabilitation measures and for organising cultural activities. Beyond this institutional integration, parts of the squatter movement continued to intervene militantly in urban politics, for example in current debates around Leipzig’s gentrification.

Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg: alien element on the housing market Prenzlauer Berg is an East Berlin district characterised by Gründerzeit tenements. In the late 1980s, about 20 percent of all flats were unused, and a first study following the Wende found that more than 90 percent were in need of rehabilitation.52 Previously a working-class neighbourhood, Prenzlauer Berg was considered the poorest area of East Berlin; according to one observer, there was a “diverse mix of influences from the dissatisfied, drop-outs and non-conformists”.53 With more than 30,000 housing units in five formally designated rehabilitation areas in the early 1990s, Prenzlauer Berg became the “largest contiguous rehabilitation area in Europe”.54 An extremely comprehensive rehabilitation programme transformed the area into what today belongs to Berlin’s most expensive districts; less than 20 percent of its previous residents still live in the area, which is considered a focal point of a newly created gentrification in Berlin.55

The origins of the squatter movement in East Berlin go back to the 1970s when young adults, from drop-outs to well-educated graduates, began to illegally move into vacant flats. Based on official estimates, around 800 people lived in such flats in 1983; by 1987 they numbered more than 1,200.56 In certain areas, the practice of tacit squatting became a feature of every-day life and met with a dissident political, art and cultural scene. In 1980, the building Fehrbelliner Straße 7 became the first one to be fully occupied in this manner; it was considered a “non-conformist and rebellious centre”.57 The squatters included well-known faces from East Berlin’s punk scene as well as prominent members of the civil rights movement.58 During the following years, but especially in 1989, this confluence of oppositional movements and subcultures was intensifying.59 Following the fall of the Wall, the residents of Schönhauser Allee 20/21 publicly announced their squatting in December 1989. This kicked off Berlin’s second wave of squatting; the first one took place in the early 1980s in the Western part of the city.60 In Prenzlauer Berg more than 30 buildings were turned into squats by March 1990, and roughly the same number in adjacent districts. The movement’s centre then relocated to the neighbouring district of Friedrichshain with the occupation of a number of buildings in Mainzer Straße in April/May. Inspired by the civil rights movement’s culture of political consensus, the squatters attempted to negotiate with local housing developers and politicians to safeguard the continued existence of their buildings. However, at the city level the discussions of the ‘Squatter Council’ with the East Berlin Magistrate stagnated; as of July 1990, the latter adopted the so-called “Berliner Linie”, a policy that West Berlin’s government exercised since 1981: existing squats were to be legalised, new squats to be evicted immediately. The first evictions that took place just a few days later were in contradiction to the still applicable law of the GDR. With ‘reunification’ in October 1990, the government cleared the path for a “solution to the problem of squatting”, which the ruling Social Democrats wanted to bring about with the evictions of the thirteen squats in Mainzer Straße. However, police brutality during the evictions and an internal conflict with their coalition partner, the Alternative Liste (the West Berlin branch of the Green

Party), forced not only the city’s decision makers but also the squatters back to the negotiating table. In Prenzlauer Berg, where in the light of looming evictions two thirds of the squats had already signed individual tenancy agreements, a ‘Rehab Squat Round Table’ was created.61 A package solution was negotiated and signed two months later pointing towards an approach that had the potential of commanding majority backing: in order to legalise squats, the inhabitants of the squats would form associations that would then sign contracts with the city’s official housing associations.62 Squats in Berlin-Mitte followed this approach from January 1991 onwards, and from March the squatters in Friedrichshain also joined. From 1991 onwards, new attempts at squatting occurred only sporadically and rarely successfully. Jörg Schönbohm (CDU), Senator of the Interior since 1996, then proceeded to ‘solve’ the ‘squatting problem’ for good by ordering the eviction of the last remaining squats. In the early 2000s, the legalised buildings came under pressure when new private owners no longer accepted the contracts between squatters and the city, contested existing contracts, or sued residents over (alleged) breaches of contractual agreements.63

The buildings affected by squatting had only limited relevance for the housing economy. The 12,000 flats that were tacitly occupied (2.5 percent of all flats in the rehabilitation areas) and the 30 squats (1.6 percent of all buildings) constituted only a small percentage of the housing stock. While the squats were not able to put up a defence against the restitution of over 70 percent of real estate property and a severely over-heated land market in the early 1990s,64 the quick signing of tenancy agreements secured long term use for the former squatters; in many cases this amounted to a privatisation of former squats. However, up until today these buildings form a certain barrier against private sector interests. Since 1991, at least fourteen (former) squats in Prenzlauer Berg and a further eight in the adjacent district of Mitte accepted funding under the programme “Self Help in Building” (in existence since the 1980s) and thus secured long-term low living costs.65 Up to today, about 25 legalised former squats in Prenzlauer Berg form a kind of shadow housing market in the gentrified district where rents remain far below those in the surrounding inner city areas. With

collective tenancy agreements or joint purchases, supported by public funding initiatives, the squatters removed a segment of housing supply from the rules of real estate valorisation.

The squats in Prenzlauer Berg, in contrast to those in Kreuzberg (West Berlin) and Friedrichshain, had little influence on public and media perceptions of their neighbourhood. Their fast legalisation and pacification allowed for the flourishing of diverse identities within and across the houses that could not easily be co-opted for the district’s symbolic regeneration. The squats had insufficient proximity to the oppositional movement and the symbolic places of the Wende to be suitable to contribute towards the myth of “a corner for poets, thinkers and dissidents”.66 For them to join the “laboratory of transition”67 from the mid-1990s onwards, they lacked the symbolism of the East/West tensions in reunified Germany. And for the ‘Bionade-Biedermeier-Biotop’,68 they were simply too grubby and sub-cultural. While the world was reporting on the ‘peaceful revolution’ of the GDR, the squatters were militantly defending themselves against Neo-Nazis and evictions. When the old GDR legislation was harmonised with West German tenancy law, and restitutions and fears of displacement brought tenant protests to the fore, the first former squats were already modernising their street fronts with funding from the city government. The former squats with their air of self-help do not fit in with today’s gentrification image of prestigiously modernised old buildings and glass fronts of luxurious new builds. Rather it is a case of individual (former) squats preserving their sub-cultural identities and remaining visible counterpoints in a gentrified neighbourhood.

The former squats have also had little influence on local politics except for the few months between occupation and legalisation. During this time, a relationship of trust between squatters and the district-level decision makers developed fairly quickly, which was also due to private contacts with former opposition members who were by then eager to become part of political institutions. On

account of the frequent attacks from Neo-Nazis, the squatters were also in recurrent contact with the authorities and sometimes formed safety partnerships with the police. The city government, from June 1990 onwards constituted jointly between the West Berlin Senate and the East Berlin Magistrate, drew on the tried strategy of pacification by selective integration with tenancy agreements and funding while excluding and criminalising those who did not want to be integrated.69 Large parts of the squatter movement – in contrast to the majority of tenants in the district as a whole – were thus well protected against restitution claims and new tenancy laws, able to largely ignore any threatening developments on the housing market. The buildings became islands, loosely connected by shared experiences and sub-cultural belonging but largely closed off from their neighbourhoods and emergent urban political initiatives; a case in point is that the squatters hardly took part in the Wir Bleiben Alle (We will all remain) campaign70 that was initiated by local neighbourhood meetings (Kiezversammlungen), which led to mass demonstrations of several thousand participants against considerable rent increases for poor residents.

An urgency rehabilitation programme of 25 million deutsche marks was established as early as February 1990 and followed the tried principles of “careful urban renewal”. It also provided the West Berlin elites with a testing ground for the transfer of instruments, institutions and personnel into the newly emerging rehabilitation areas in the East.71 The transfer of tried and tested solutions, complemented by the particularities of the consensus culture prevalent in the GDR’s oppositional movement, ensured that the biggest East German squatter movement was also to become its most short-lived. Due to the speedy integration of the squats in Prenzlauer Berg and their relative insulation from the urban struggles beyond their ‘free space’, they more or less ceased to be urban political actors as early as 1991.

Dresden Äußere Neustadt: proactive institutionalisation and marginalisation

Äußere Neustadt (lit. Outer New Town) is a centrally located district with predominately old housing stock. With high vacancy rates and massive physical neglect, it was considered a typical product of GDR housing policy.72 After 1990, the local authorities designated it a rehabilitation area, the effects of which led to increasing rents and a change in its demographic composition. A decade later, Äußere Neustadt exhibited the lowest proportion of affordable flats and by 2010 the average length of tenancy was below half of the city average.73 With labels such as “old housing stock in a good neighbourhood” or “a late winner”, Äußere Neustadt is today considered a gentrification area, a paradise for “those setting up a new household and for young families”.74 The few streets that make up the area have emerged from an “experimentation of alternative culture” to a “trendy pub district” heavily influenced by tourism.75 The stages of urban development – vacancy, rehabilitation, and gentrification – are also reflected in the course of squatting within the neighbourhood. In the 1980s, Äußere Neustadt became a focal point for sub-cultural and oppositional groups whose members were often ‘residing illicitly’ in vacant flats. Between 1990 and 1994, around twenty buildings were occupied, some of them repeatedly, which happened with a clear political message to the public, usually propagating collective housing projects.76 In contrast to the area’s approximately 200 flats with illicit residents, who with the support of local initiatives obtained tenancy agreements in 1993, the squats enjoyed only limited public support. Two thirds of the buildings were evicted or abandoned by their occupiers before 1996; the remaining third obtained long-term tenancy agreements, or were transferred into housing co-operatives or collective purchases. The first squatters were considered “not to be militant”.77 They emphasised rehabilitation and a transfer into legalised circumstances with the aim of preserving the old housing stock, their living space and, above all, the existing alternative free spaces and subcultures. After the Wende, only very few buildings were turned into squats; multiple attempted squats in 1993/94 and another in 2004 were swiftly evicted by the police.

The legalisations of the early 1990s (nine squats and around 200 tacitly occupied flats) affected around three percent of the overall housing stock. At one point, almost five percent of the existing housing units were squats. Even if this figure is higher than in the squatting centres of other cities, the immediate effect on the creation of market conditions and a subsequent realisation of commercial real estate interests remained limited. The local authorities pursued a legalisation strategy that affirmed the markets; tenancy agreements and rehabilitation plans were primarily drawn up for buildings in public ownership. At the same time, the authorities sought to secure the interests of future private owners and their restitution claims in what amounts to anticipatory obedience and thus evicted selectively. While the affordable rents of the early 1990s came to an end, and tenancy agreements had to be renegotiated, the residents who jointly purchased their legalised buildings or established co-operatives obtained long-term security. Usually, there is no difference in the buildings’ physical conditions or modernisation status when compared with other buildings in the upgraded neighbourhood. Some of the former squats, however, offer considerably cheaper rent levels than those commonly seen elsewhere in the district.

Squatting in the early 1990s was part of a sub-cultural stirring that had begun earlier and had a much broader impact. As early as 1983, a self-organised children’s party had taken place in the district – an utter exception and a political provocation in the GDR. The cultural centre Scheune (barn) in Alaunstraße was the preferred meeting point of punk and hip-hop scene among other subcultures and held a special place in the cultural landscape of GDR state-socialism. An explicitly political dimension was added with the Äußere Neustadt interest group (IG) formed in protest against the planned demolition of more than 4,000 flats. When, following the Wende, the suppressed utopias of an alternative and free society remained marginalised, the local scene organised a neighbourhood festival under the banner “Colourful Republic Neustadt” (Bunte Republik Neustadt) during the week leading up to the currency union of June 1990. Along with the many illegal pubs and cafes, this annual festival shaped the image of Äußere Neustadt as an alternative neighbourhood

with its “very own particular culture”.78 The squats remained in the background of the “Colourful Republic”, they offered free spaces for the development of sub-cultural and political identities but did not achieve any local hegemony in terms of image formation. Over time, the image of Äußere Neustadt was changing, including physical upgrading, a socio-cultural re-composition and a changing commercial structure. From 1999 onwards, the neighbourhood festival “finally succumbed to being a de-politicised fun fair by following the changing neighbourhood image of a place for fun and entertainment”.79

Rehabilitation and displacement have accompanied the Neustadt squatter movement ever since its beginnings. The first “Colourful Republic” festival, in June 1990, was already titled “We will remain and we will defend ourselves”.80 Activists were able to leave their mark on urban renewal policies, particularly during the Wende. Early on, IG Äußere Neustadt designed, in cooperation with the ‘Planning Collective’ from Hamburg, an immediate action programme to secure decaying buildings and subsequently influenced the process of urban renewal while campaigning for a legalisation of illicit residencies.81 Initially, the IG, which wanted to be more than a mere “citizen’s initiative to support rehabilitation”, usually bypassed the local administration.82 The IG also intervened actively in discussions concerning the neighbourhood’s development once Äußere Neustadt became a designated rehabilitation area in 1991. This co-operative attitude and proactive campaigning was not to last once gentrification started. The IG, frustrated in its dealings with politicians and administrators, eventually dissolved, and squatting was only used intermittently after 1994 as a means of protest against the onset of upgrading and displacement.83 “De facto changes in the district, the financial problems of many alternative housing projects and a strengthened regulatory claim […] as well as stricter law enforcement against squats and protests”, enabled a slow process of de-politicisation within urban initiatives in general and the squatter movement in particular.84

Potsdam-Innenstadt: nomadic self-sufficiency and acculturation With over 40 per cent, Potsdam possessed the highest proportion of old housing stock among the four case study areas considered in this chapter. In addition to Gründerzeit neighbourhoods such as Babelsberg, constructed around 1900, parts of the northern inner city originated in the Baroque town expansion of around 1720. The old housing stock districts were in a desolate condition; more than a third of the flats were unused. In the Dutch Quarter and other areas of the city centre, whole blocks were demolished as late as the 1980s. Even before the Wende, protests began against GDR construction policy and achieved an end to the demolitions in October 1989. The key aim of the rehabilitation statutes that were drawn up in the early 1990s was to “improve […] the housing and living conditions of the residents […] and to [safeguard] the existing demographic structure”.85 The implementation of these aims was, however, blocked by unresolved ownership structures in case of more than half of the old housing stock as late as the mid-1990s.86 It was only towards the end of the decade that the social character of the district began to change alongside the fast progress of the rehabilitation programme and an increase in resident numbers. In the northern city centre, changing political aims geared towards prestige and representation strengthened the tendency to upgrade: the new credo was to emphasise a “reclaiming” of the “organically grown historical town centre” to fully realise its commercial potential.87 The renewal sites around Gutenbergstraße are currently considered the most expensive addresses in a city that has become one of the most expensive in East Germany.88 Other districts with old housing stock, such as Babelsberg, were also transformed from areas with an above average proportion of low-income residents and unemployed into “desirable residential locations” that are “highly attractive for young families”.89

The squatter movement in Potsdam was relatively persistent and spatially not very tightly focused but spread out throughout the city. Beginning with the first openly self-proclaimed squat at Dortustraße 65 in December 1989, the northern inner city became the geographical starting point of the movement. Ensuing occupations up to January 1991 were all within a 200 m radius.90 However,

the area, unlike Dresden Neustadt or Leipzig-Connewitz, did not gain public significance as a centre of squatting. As nomadic free spaces, the open squats as well as tacit flat occupations were spread out across large areas of the city and remained mostly unchallenged by public institutions for over two and a half years, far beyond the time frame of the Wende's political power vacuum. This situation only changed once the local authorities had the first squat evicted in the summer of 1992 while simultaneously supporting – with tenancy agreements and public funding – the social and cultural centre Waschhaus at the north-easterly edge of the city, which had only recently been turned into a squat. The eviction of the autonomous social centre fabrik at Gutenbergstraße 105 in September 1993 and the subsequent street battle marked the starting point of a critical phase in Potsdam’s squatter movement. The city confirmed the ‘Potsdamer Linie’, established in 1991. Here, too, negotiations were to take place with existing squats, but new squats were to be prevented resolutely.91 Under pressure from both rehabilitation and eviction, the squatter movement was diverted to other parts of the city. From 1994, at the latest, we can observe a clear relocation away from the northern city centre in particular towards Babelsberg and Potsdam West. With a total of 60 squats during the 1990s, Potsdam’s squatter movement come more or less to a halt with only five squats left in 2000. Just like previously in East Berlin, the appointment of CDU politician Jörg Schönbohm – formerly the highest-ranking officer in the Bundeswehr – to the post of Interior Minister for the state of Brandenburg marked the repressive conclusion of the squatting movement.

The 60 squats during the decade following the Wende represent approximately 0.5 percent of the city’s housing stock. While the proportion of squats in the northern city centre was considerably higher in the early 1990s, the total number was too low for any immediate influence on real-estate market developments. Once ownership questions were settled and the rehabilitation statutes designated, most of the buildings around Gutenbergstraße were evicted. Long-term tenancy agreements and alternative buildings were offered almost exclusively to squats in buildings that were in public ownership. The fact that most squatters opted for an approach to legalisation that was

in line with market interests in conjunction with the rather decentralised nature of their activities meant that direct confrontations with private property interests remained largely absent in the late 1990s. A number of the legalised squats were able to secure long-term leaseholds.92 Rents in the former squats remained considerably below average local rent levels, even after the local authorities significantly increased the term of the tenancy agreements.93 In a further five former squats, purchased by the non-commercial cooperative Mietshäuser Syndikat (tenement syndicate), current rents are only 40 to 60 per cent of average local rent expectations for a new tenancy.94 The former squats and the buildings obtained in exchange deals make up an affordable housing segment, particularly in the upgraded rehabilitation areas of the city centre and Babelsberg.

The sub-cultural self-sufficiency of Potsdam’s alternative scene had developed in the 1980s in the context of tacit squatting, it expanded in the 1990s in the buildings that were openly turned into squats and then legalised or exchanged for other houses provided by the city. It was strengthened by two factors: the nearly complete absence of any intervention from the state and support from public cultural funding at the local level. The squatters used the thus appropriated spaces “for the establishment and institutionalisation of their own expectations in terms of art, culture and way of life”.95 The city, in return, discovered within this orientation towards social and cultural projects a key to pacifying the squatter movement. Many organisations of the non-commercial youth culture are rooted in the squatter movement. Neither based on neighbourhood identity nor equipped with a strong focus on urban politics, the squatter movement exerted only limited influence on the general character of its neighbourhoods. Moreover, in the face of a symbolic process of regeneration that relied on historicising the city – in the image of Prussia’s residence with a baroque flair as promoted by the city administration – the squats and sub-cultural centres presented more of a hindrance than positive attributes. Potsdam is probably the only major city in Germany without any significant critical discourse on questions of neighbourhood development and urban politics.

The relationship between the squatters and the local authorities was initially characterised by the politics of toleration. From 1991 onwards, the squatters proactively sought contact with the municipal authorities. These negotiations ran aground after the squatters felt they were not taken seriously by their discussion partners at the regulatory agency (Ordnungsamt). The city only started its policy of offering alternative buildings to several squats threatened with eviction in the spring of 1994. The local authorities established a post tasked to act as the squatter movement’s contact, and the building administration was partially transferred to non-profit organisations that had already taken over former squats in West Berlin.96 The city supported the squats’ artistic, social and cultural programmes from as early as 1990 onwards, regardless of the unsettled legal circumstances. Both the ‘independent art factory’ at Hermann-Elflein-Str. 10 and the autonomous social centre fabrik received funding from local authorities at one time or another.97 This relationship can be described as a process of mutual acculturation: the ‘free spaces’ of the squats took on a compensatory function for restrictions in the budgets for cultural and social policy; at the same time, the squatter movement was considered a key influence in urban politics with a broad spectrum of societal support ranging from key people in the local administration and the Party of Democratic Socialism to youth and church organisations. Without much direct political intervention, the squatters were able to capitalise on their socio-cultural significance for the local youth culture, which helped them to eventually undermine the ‘Potsdamer Linie’. The squat ‘Archiv’ in the southern city centre was occupied in 1994 and tolerated until 1997; it was able to secure, by means of negotiations, street campaigning and with the support of the city’s youth welfare committee, a return to the building after an earlier eviction due to concerns over the building’s structural safety.98 A current example is the ‘Datscha’, occupied in 2008 and still in existence, which actively positions itself in the conflicts around upgrading and for a “right to the city”.99 Such an explicit politicisation was absent at the start of the movement and only became visible with the housing struggles of 1993/94 when the squatter movement tried to avert its own displacement. Due to its nomadic character and its sub-

cultural self-sufficiency, Potsdam’s squatter movement, in comparison with the other case studies of this chapter, has had the least impact on its surrounding urban space.

CONCLUSION

Squatting in East Germany was shaped by the specific conditions of reunification. The symptoms of the urban political crisis at the end of the GDR – vacancies, physical and socio-political neglect of old inner-city housing stock and institutional and symbolic loss of legitimacy – were not entirely dissimilar to the crisis of Fordist urban politics in West Germany and Western Europe. Both facilitated squatting on a large scale. Following the Wende, the manner in which public bodies dealt with squatting and neighbourhood development were, above all, influenced by the conditions of an accelerated neoliberalisation of urban politics. The state-enforced re-establishment of market conditions and an increasingly entrepreneurial style in urban politics have led to gentrification processes in each of the case studies. In accordance with neoliberal governance, local administrations in East Germany relied on a strengthening of competitiveness, the privatisation of services, and a de-politicised co-optation of critical movements.

A transitional phase in which new regimes of rehabilitation were forming via negotiations with urban movements – already common in many West German cities – was replaced by the rapid transition from a quasi-Fordist crisis to entrepreneurial urban politics. In contrast to such examples as the squatters in the West Berlin district of Kreuzberg during the early 1980s, East German squatters were not able to significantly influence urban politics.100 This is also reflected in the relationship between squats, urban politics and gentrification, which raises certain questions concerning the usual arguments of academic and public debate in this field. While squatting is

usually considered: (a) a pioneer movement for a symbolic upgrading of gentrifying areas, (b) a disruption in the realisation of real estate interests, (c) a part of urban protest movements against gentrification and displacement, and (d) driver for innovation in the enforcement of new regimes of urban renewal, our case studies show a different picture:

(a) Squats did not act as the source for symbolic effects for later gentrification; alternative neighbourhood identities were able to develop particularly in non-gentrified neighbourhoods. Despite similar starting conditions and comparable size in the four case studies, the squatters’ influence on the identity of their neighbourhoods remains variable. In Potsdam any possible effect of the squats on the city’s image was not bound to a specific geographical area from the start. This was due to a decentralisation that was partly enforced but also voluntary. The image of the squats was heavily charged with sub-cultural connotations and thus incompatible with the city’s branding strategy that promoted a baroque residence. The perception of the squats in Dresden’s Äußere Neustadt and Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg overlapped with various spatial imaginations and might account partially for the image of these neighbourhoods – Neustadt as an ‘alternative scene district’ and Prenzlauer Berg as a ‘corner for non-conformists’. However, an autonomous and long-lasting impact on the public perception of the respective neighbourhood can only be discovered for Leipzig-Connewitz. Here the squatter scene had a significant influence on the development of the myth of Connewitz as an alternative and left-wing district. It is significant that the strongest symbolic effect of the squats is discernible in the one area that has not yet been affected by gentrification. The assumed nexus between squats, symbolic regeneration and gentrification cannot be confirmed in the cases that we researched.

(b) The squats did not disrupt the realisation of real estate interests; however, they provided a sheltered segment of affordable housing provision in gentrification areas. Gentrification in East

Germany cannot be explained with reference to neighbourhood-specific demand but in the main results from a state-organised implementation of market principles via restitution legislation and investment incentives in rehabilitation areas. The legalisation and eviction of squats conformed to the market; almost all of the legalised houses, with exceptions in East Berlin, were in public ownership or were, as in Leipzig, purchased by the local authorities. In Dresden and Potsdam a selective approach to eviction ensured private interests even before restitutions claims were settled. Permanent use by the squatters was conditional on public ownership; an immediate confrontation with private interests remained the exception. With the aid of long-term tenancy agreements, the establishment of co-operatives or joint ownerships, the former squats of all areas developed into sheltered market segments for affordable housing. Particularly in the strongly gentrified districts of East Berlin and Potsdam, the former squats continue to offer considerably lower rent levels. In comparison to fixed-term funding initiatives and rent caps in the context of rehabilitation, self-help programmes prove to be the most sustainable and effective tool in the politics of housing over the last 20 years.

(c) Participation of squats in anti-gentrification protests was only partial and marginal in its effects. During the peak of the squatter movement, gentrification was not a relevant topic for East German cities. Many squats during the period of the Wende were based on the tradition of ‘residing illicitly’ and were based within the parameters and everyday life of the GDR’s final years.101 Squatter movements only emerged when the step was taken from hidden and individual appropriations to the open and collective occupation of spaces for communal living, political and sub-cultural activities, when dreams of a different society merged with a sub-cultural understanding of free spaces.102 Both identities on offer (‘residing illicitly’ and ‘free space’) provided only a limited interface with the societal conflicts of reunification. When squatters were accepted as urban political actors, as was the case in Leipzig and Potsdam, they utilised this role in particular for a self-referential safeguarding of their housing and cultural projects. The squat as a form of action

only emerged in the mid-1990s when a few initiatives explicitly targeted real estate speculation and local administrative failings. In total, the relationship between squats and local protest movements offers a paradoxical image: while squatters in the cities with the strongest gentrification pressures (Berlin and Potsdam) largely kept their distance from neighbourhood protests, the strongest affinity towards the anti-gentrification movement can be found in Leipzig of all places, where gentrification is least developed. In particular since 2010, activists in Connewitz, but also in a few former squats in other cities, have positioned themselves (at times without reference to their own projects) in debates over neighbourhood development and participate with statements and active campaigning in the widening gentrification debates of their cities.

(d) The active influence of squats and their surroundings on new regimes of urban renewal remained limited; however, the state’s approach vis-à-vis the squats became a testing ground for the enforcement of West German institutions and programmes. The squats in Leipzig and Dresden were closely linked with urban political initiatives that demanded an end to the plans for demolition in Neustadt and Connewitz in the late 1980s. Civil rights movement activists actively supported squatting and considered their engagement a litmus test for the possibility of a different urban politics. During this “phase of initialisation”,103 the squats exhibited the classic character of “conservational squatting”.104 The enforcement of new models of urban renewal at the beginning of the 1990s was marked, right from the start, by a large degree of institutionalisation; representatives of the East German civil rights movement pushed into the administrations, and West German rehabilitation agencies exported their professional expertise eastwards. Spaces for protest movements to leave their own mark remained limited. In Dresden, the IG Äußere Neustadt, closely linked to the squatter movement, was able to influence the rehabilitation policy for a sustained period of time. The support for different models of communal living and self-help rehabilitation by local administration in Leipzig can be regarded as a case of institutional learning from the squatter

movement. However, such an adaption of the squatters’ collective principles for tackling urban political challenges under the conditions of shrinkage remained exceptional.

Even with squats mainly concentrated in those areas of East German cities that were undergoing upgrading at a later stage, there is no indication of a causal relationship between them and gentrification. The squats played only a minor role in the enforcement of market principles in housing stock management and the gentrification that began only after the millennium. They neither took the role of pioneers for symbolic regeneration nor that of a driving force for the innovation of urban renewal regimes. Beyond the immediate effects of supply due to their relatively low rent levels, their influence on urban renewal policy remained distinctly limited.

Reasons for the de-coupling of the squats from neighbourhood change and urban politics go beyond the specific conditions of transformation during the Wende. The examples provided make the typical patterns of a neoliberal approach towards squatting visible. A selective and market-compliant legalisation, the containment and pacification of the movement by strategies of acculturation, as well as attempts to co-opt and adapt aspects of the movement into new forms of urban governance resulted in a neutralisation of squatting in terms of urban politics and its de-politicisation more generally. Similar developments can be observed in the history of other squatter movements, for example during the 1990s in Barcelona.105

The marginalisation of squats in their neighbourhood points towards a serious change in urban development. Gentrification is no longer a phenomenon that is specific to a neighbourhood but has become a much more comprehensive mainstream in real estate valorisation.106 Municipal interests in upgrading, an economy of public investment incentives and a mushrooming of private interests are neither reliant on symbolic regeneration nor on the careful integration of neighbourhoods. As

sheltered segments of an affordable housing supply, the former squats, positioned on publicly owned land and equipped with tenancy agreements, constitute artefacts of late-Fordist struggles over urban development. Their tentative attempts to seek a position in the current anti-gentrification struggles provide hope for a late re-politicisation of the East German squatter movement.

BIBLIOGRAPHY amantine. “Die Häuser denen, die drin wohnen“: Kleine Geschichte der Häuserkämpfe in Deutschland. Münster: Unrast, 2012. azozomox. “Besetzen im 21. Jahrhundert: ‘Die Häuser denen die drin wohnen‘”. Reclaim Berlin: Soziale Kämpfe in der neoliberalen Stadt, ed. Andrej Holm, 273−304. Berlin: Assoziation A, 2014. Bernt, Matthias, and Andrej Holm, “Wir bleiben alle?“, Umkämpfte Räume, ed. StadtRat, 141–167. Hamburg: Verlag Libertäre Assoziation/Verlag der Buchläden Schwarze Risse – Rote Straße, 1998. Bernt, Matthias. Rübergeklappt! Die “Behutsame Stadterneuerung” im Berlin der 90er Jahre. Berlin: Schelsky & Jeep, 2003. Derlien, Hans-Ulrich. “Elitenzirkulation zwischen Implosion und Integration: Abgang, Rekrutierung und Zusammensetzung ostdeutscher Funktionseliten 1989−1994“. Transformationen der politisch-administrativen Strukturen in Ostdeutschland, ed. Hellmut Wollmann et al., 329–415. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1997. Dieser, Hartwig. “Restitution: Wie funktioniert sie und was bewirkt sie?“ Stadtentwicklung in Ostdeutschland, ed. Hartmut Häußermann and Rainer Neef, 129−138. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1996. Dörfler, Thomas. Gentrification in Prenzlauer Berg? Milieuwandel eines Berliner Sozialraums seit 1989. Bielefeld: transcript, 2010. Franz, Peter. “Soziale Ungleichheit und Stadtentwicklung in ostdeutschen Städten”, Stadt und soziale Ungleichheit, ed. Annette Harth, Gitta Scheller and Wulf Tessin, 160−173. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2000. Giesecke, Una. Die Äußere Neustadt: Aus der Geschichte eines Dresdner Stadtteils. Dresden: Sandstein, 2007. Glatter, Jan. “Von der ‘Bronx’ zum Szeneviertel des ‘bohemian chic’: Die Entwicklung der Dresdener Äußeren Neustadt seit Ende der 1980er Jahre”. Himmelweit gleich? Europas ’89, ed. Weiterdenken/Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Sachsen, 80−85. Dresden: baerens & fuss, 2009. Glatter, Jan. Gentrification in Ostdeutschland – untersucht am Beispiel der Dresdner Äußeren Neustadt. PhD diss.: TU Dresden, 2007. Gnaudschun, Göran. Vorher müsst ihr uns erschießen: Hausbesetzer in Potsdam. Berlin: Archiv der Jugendkulturen Verlag, 2001. Grashoff, Udo. Schwarzwohnen: Die Unterwanderung der staatlichen Wohnraumlenkung in der DDR. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2011. Hannemann, Christine. Die Platte: industrialisierter Wohnungsbau in der DDR. Berlin: Schelzky & Jeep, 2nd ed. 2000. Harth, Annette, Ulfert Herlyn and Gitta Scheller. Segregation in ostdeutschen Städten. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1998. Häußermann, Hartmut, Andrej Holm and Daniela Zunzer. Stadterneuerung in der Berliner Republik: Modernisierung in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2002. Herfert, Günter. “Desurbanisierung and Reurbanisierung: Polarisierte Raumentwicklung in der ostdeutschen Schrumpfungslandschaft“. Raumforschung und Raumordnung 5/6 (2002): 334–344. Hill, Andre, and Karin Wiest. “Gentrification in ostdeutschen Cityrandgebieten? Theoretische Überlegungen zum empirischen Forschungsstand”. Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 78 (2004): 25–39. Holm, Andrej, and Armin Kuhn. “Squatting and Urban Renewal in Berlin: The interaction of squatter movements and strategies of urban restructuring”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35 (2011): 644–658. Holm, Andrej, Matthias Bernt and Dieter Rink. “Gentrificationforschung in Ostdeutschland: Konzeptionelle Probleme und Forschungslücken”. Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 84 (2010): 185−203. Holm, Andrej. “Berlin’s Gentrification Mainstream”, The Berlin Reader: A Compendium on Urban Change and Activism, ed. Andrej Holm, Britta Grell and Matthias Bernt, 171−188. Bielefeld: transcript, 2013. Hoscislawski, Thomas. Bauen zwischen Macht und Ohnmacht: Architektur und Städtebau in der DDR. Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen, 1991. Kabisch, Sigrun, Annett Steinführer and Annegret Haase. “Reurbanisierung aus soziodemographischer Perspektive: Haushalte und Quartierswandel in der inneren Stadt”. Reurbanisierung, ed. Klaus Brake and Günter Herfert, 113–129. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2012. Kabisch, Sigrun. Stadtumbau unter Schrumpfungsbedingungen: Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Fallstudie. Wiesbaden:

Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2004. Kil, Wolfgang. “Prenzlauer Berg: Aufstieg und Fall einer Nische”. Die Stadt als Gabentisch: Beobachtungen der aktuellen Städtebauentwicklung, ed. Hans G. Helms, 508–520. Leipzig: Reclam, 1992. Krajewski, Christian. Urbane Transformationsprozesse in zentrumsnahen Stadtquartieren: Gentrification und innere Differenzierung am Beispiel der Spandauer Vorstadt und der Rosenthaler Vorstadt in Berlin. Münster: Universität Münster, Institut für Geographie, 2006. Kuhn, Armin. Vom Häuserkampf zur neoliberalen Stadt: Besetzungsbewegungen und Stadterneuerung in Berlin und Barcelona. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2014. Ley, David. “Alternative explanations for Inner-City Gentrification: A Canadian Assessment”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 76 (1986): 521−535. Ley, David. “Artists, Aestheticisation and the Field of Gentrification”. Urban Studies 40 (2003): 2527–2544. Mai, Ralf. Abwanderung aus Ostdeutschland: Strukturen und Milieus der Altersselektivität und ihre regionalpolitische Bedeutung. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2004. Marquardt, Nadine, Henning Füller, Georg Glasze and Robert Pütz. “Shaping the Urban Renaissance: New-build Luxury Developments in Berlin”. Urban Studies 50 (2013): 1540–1556. Mitchell, Peter. “Socialism’s Contested Urban Space: A Study of East German Squatters”. March 2012. http://spaceandsocialrelations.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/peter-mitchell-socilamisms-contested-urban-sapces.pdf. Nägler, Laura. Gentrification and Resistance: Cultural criminology, control, and the commodification of urban protest in Hamburg. Münster: LIT, 2012. Patterson, Clayton, ed. Resistance: A Radical Political History of the Lower East Side. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007. Pigorsch, Stephanie, and Matthias Lack. Kulturelle Nischen erobern die Stadt: Implizites Handlungswissen soziokultureller Initiativen in Potsdam, 1980−2012. Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2015. Pruijt, Hans. “The Logic of Urban Squatting”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37 (2013): 19−45. Reimann, Bettina. Städtische Wohnquartiere: Der Einfluss der Eigentümerstruktur. Eine Fallstudie aus Berlin Prenzlauer Berg. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2000. Rink, Dieter. “Der Traum ist aus? Hausbesetzer in Leipzig-Connewitz”. Jugend, Politik und Protest: Vom Widerstand zum Kommerz?, ed. Roland Roth and Dieter Rucht, 119−140. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2000. Rink, Dieter. “Schrumpfen als Transformationsproblem: Ursachen und Verlaufsformen von Schrumpfung in Ostdeutschland”. Stadtumbau komplex: Governance, Planung, Prozess, ed. Matthias Bernt, Michael Haus and Tobias Robischon, 58–78. Darmstadt: Schrader Stiftung, 2010. Smith, Neil. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. New York: Routledge, 1996. Squatting Europe Kollective, ed. Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles. New York: Minor Compositions, 2013. Streich, Bernd. Stadtplanung in der Wissensgesellschaft: Ein Handbuch. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011. Zischner, Romy. Gentrification in Leipzig-Connewitz? Theoretische Gentrification-Ansätze und deren Gültigkeit in Städten der neuen Bundesländer. Degree thesis: University of Leipzig, 2003. Zukin, Sharon. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9

10 11

12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29

30

Göran Gnaudschun, Vorher müsst ihr uns erschießen: Hausbesetzer in Potsdam (Berlin: Archiv der Jugendkulturen Verlag, 2001), 9. Jan Glatter, Gentrification in Ostdeutschland – untersucht am Beispiel der Dresdner Äußeren Neustadt (PhD diss. TU Dresden, 2007), 86. amantine, “Die Häuser denen, die drin wohnen!“ Kleine Geschichte der Häuserkämpfe in Deutschland (Münster: Unrast, 2012), 23–25. Dieter Rink, “Der Traum ist aus? Hausbesetzer in Leipzig-Connewitz”, Jugend, Politik und Protest: Vom Widerstand zum Kommerz?, ed. Roland Roth and Dieter Rucht (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2000), 136. Hans Pruijt, “The Logic of Urban Squatting”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37 (2013), 19−45. Andrej Holm and Armin Kuhn, “Squatting and Urban Renewal in Berlin: The interaction of squatter movements and strategies of urban restructuring”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35 (2011), 644–658. Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (New York: Routledge, 1996), 3–5; Clayton Patterson (ed.), Resistance: A Radical Political History of the Lower East Side (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007). Squatting Europe Kollective, Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles (New York: Minor Compositions, 2013). Rebeca Hobson, “The untold story of squats: gentrification and regeneration”, London loves Business, 27 October 2011, http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/property/residential-property/the-untold-story-of-squats-gentrificationand-regeneration/899.article (accessed 15 May 2015). Laura Nägler, Gentrification and Resistance: Cultural criminology, control, and the commodification of urban protest in Hamburg (Münster: LIT, 2012), 12. David Ley, “Alternative explanations for Inner-City Gentrification: A Canadian Assessment,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 76 (1986), 521−535; David Ley, “Artists, Aestheticisation and the Field of Gentrification”, Urban Studies 40 (2003), 2527–2544; Sharon Zukin, Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Literally ‘turnaround’, the period of transition between GDR and reunification. Christine Hannemann, Die Platte: industrialisierter Wohnungsbau in der DDR (Berlin: Schelzky & Jeep, 2nd ed. 2000). Thomas Hoscislawski, Bauen zwischen Macht und Ohnmacht: Architektur und Städtebau in der DDR (Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen, 1991). Hans-Ulrich Derlien, “Elitenzirkulation zwischen Implosion und Integration: Abgang, Rekrutierung und Zusammensetzung ostdeutscher Funktionseliten 1989−1994“, Transformationen der politisch-administrativen Strukturen in Ostdeutschland, ed. Hellmut Wollmann et al. (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1997), 329–415. Hoscislawski, Bauen zwischen Macht und Ohnmacht. Bettina Reimann, Städtische Wohnquartiere: Der Einfluss der Eigentümerstruktur. Eine Fallstudie aus Berlin Prenzlauer Berg (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2000), 75. Hartwig Dieser, “Restitution: Wie funktioniert sie und was bewirkt sie?“ Stadtentwicklung in Ostdeutschland, ed. Hartmut Häußermann and Rainer Neef (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1996), 129−138. Bundesamt zur Regelung offener Vermögensfragen, Berlin, Referat I 4 - H. Paunov, “Statistische Übersicht”, 31 December 1992, 3. Ibid. 3–4. Dieser, “Restitution”. Ralf Mai, Abwanderung aus Ostdeutschland: Strukturen und Milieus der Altersselektivität und ihre regionalpolitische Bedeutung (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2004). Peter Franz, “Soziale Ungleichheit und Stadtentwicklung in ostdeutschen Städten”, Stadt und soziale Ungleichheit, ed. Annette Harth, Gitta Scheller and Wulf Tessin (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2000), 160−173. Sigrun Kabisch, Stadtumbau unter Schrumpfungsbedingungen: Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Fallstudie (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2004); Dieter Rink, “Schrumpfen als Transformationsproblem: Ursachen und Verlaufsformen von Schrumpfung in Ostdeutschland”, Stadtumbau komplex: Governance, Planung, Prozess, ed. Matthias Bernt, Michael Haus and Tobias Robischon (Darmstadt: Schrader Stiftung, 2010), 58–78. Andrej Holm, Matthias Bernt and Dieter Rink, “Gentrificationforschung in Ostdeutschland: Konzeptionelle Probleme und Forschungslücken”, Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 84 (2010), 187. Annette Harth, Ulfert Herlyn and Gitta Scheller, Segregation in ostdeutschen Städten (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1998). Andre Hill and Karin Wiest, “Gentrification in ostdeutschen Cityrandgebieten? Theoretische Überlegungen zum empirischen Forschungsstand”, Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde 78 (2004), 25–39. Romy Zischner, “Gentrification in Leipzig-Connewitz? Theoretische Gentrification-Ansätze und deren Gültigkeit in Städten der neuen Bundesländer“, (degree thesis, University of Leipzig, 2003). Christian Krajewski, Urbane Transformationsprozesse in zentrumsnahen Stadtquartieren: Gentrification und innere Differenzierung am Beispiel der Spandauer Vorstadt und der Rosenthaler Vorstadt in Berlin (Münster: Universität Münster, Institut für Geographie, 2006). Bernd Streich, Stadtplanung in der Wissensgesellschaft: Ein Handbuch (Wiesbaden: Verlag für

Sozialwissenschaften, 2011), 459–461. 31 Sigrun Kabisch, Annett Steinführer and Annegret Haase, “Reurbanisierung aus soziodemographischer Perspektive:

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52

53 54

55

56

57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65

Haushalte und Quartierswandel in der inneren Stadt”, Reurbanisierung, ed. Klaus Brake and Günter Herfert (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2012), 113–129. Dieter Rink, Gentrification in einer armen Stadt? Zur Diskussion in Leipzig (unpublished manuscript, 2012). Günter Herfert, “Desurbanisierung and Reurbanisierung: Polarisierte Raumentwicklung in der ostdeutschen Schrumpfungslandschaft“, Raumforschung und Raumordnung 5/6 (2002), 334–344. Kleinräumiges Monitoring der Stadtentwicklung: Monitoringbericht Wohnen 2013 (Leipzig: Stadt Leipzig, 2014). Rink, Gentrification in einer armen Stadt?, 7. Dieter Rink and Romy Zischner, “Connewitz und Gentrifizierung,“ Statistischer Quartalsbericht 2 (2012), 34–35. Udo Grashoff, Schwarzwohnen: Die Unterwanderung der staatlichen Wohnraumlenkung in der DDR (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2011). Ibid. 63–65; Rink, “Der Traum ist aus?”, 123. Justus, “Leipzig schwarz-rot: Ein Rückblick auf 20 Jahre autonome Linke in Leipzig”, Feierabend 35–37 (2010), http://www.anarchismus.at/die-autonomen/6118-20-jahre-autonome-linke-in-leipzig (accessed 15 May 2015). Rink, “Der Traum ist aus”, 123–125. Leipziger Volkszeitung, 17 December 1992. Justus, “Leipzig schwarz-rot”. Stadt Leipzig, “Beschluss der 28. Ratsversammlung”, Nr. 583/96, Drucksache II/693, 21 August 1996, 17. Alternative Wohnungsgenossenschaft Connewitz e.G., “Die Alternative Wohngenossenschaft Connewitz e.G. (AWG)”, Sanierungsgebiet: “Connewitz-Biedermannstraße“, ed. DSK Deutsche Stadt- und Grundstücksentwicklungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG (Leipzig: DSK, 2012): 9; Rink, “Der Traum ist aus?“, 131– 132. Alternative Wohngenossenschaft Connewitz, “Der lange Weg zur Bewohnbarkeit: Zur Instandsetzung der Stockartstraße 7/9 in Connewitz”, ibid. 7; Rink/Zischner, “Connewitz und Gentrifizierung”. HausHalten e.V., “Wächterhäuser: Das Modell”, http://www.haushalten.org/de/waechterhaeuser_modell.asp (accessed 15 May 2015). Roman Grabolle, personal communication, 6 August 2014. Rink, “Der Traum ist aus?”, 125. Justus, “Leipzig schwarz-rot”. Uwe Müller and Christian Schulz, “’Leipzig muß der Szene Freiräume bieten’: Die Stadtväter haben sich mit den Hausbesetzern arrangiert”, Die Welt, 7 June 1995, http://www.welt.de/print-welt/article659251/Leipzig-muss-derSzene-Freiraeume-bieten.html (accessed 15 May 2015). Rink, “Der Traum ist aus?”, 123. Hartmut Häußermann, Andrej Holm and Daniela Zunzer, Stadterneuerung in der Berliner Republik: Modernisierung in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2002): 53; Teresa Parreira Vicente, “Zusammenfassende Darstellung der Sozialstudien von sechs Untersuchungsgebieten im Stadtbezirk Prenzlauer Berg”, (unpublished manuscript, 1996). Thomas Dörfler, Gentrification in Prenzlauer Berg? Milieuwandel eines Berliner Sozialraums seit 1989 (Bielefeld: transcript, 2010), 220. Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, “Stadtumbau Ost: Das Fördergebiet Prenzlauer Berg” (2013), http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/staedtebau/foerderprogramme/stadtumbau/PrenzlauerBerg.12.0.html#c13398, (accessed 15 May 2015). Andrej Holm, “Berlin’s Gentrification Mainstream”, The Berlin Reader: A Compendium on Urban Change and Activism, ed. Andrej Holm, Britta Grell and Matthias Bernt (Bielefeld: transcript, 2013), 171−188; Nadine Marquardt, Henning Füller, Georg Glasze and Robert Pütz, “Shaping the Urban Renaissance: New-build Luxury Developments in Berlin”, Urban Studies 50 (2013), 1540–1556. Peter Mitchell, “Socialism’s Contested Urban Space: A Study of East German Squatters” (March 2012), 14, http://spaceandsocialrelations.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/peter-mitchell-socilamisms-contested-urban-sapces.pdf (accessed 15 May 2015); Grashoff, Schwarzwohnen, 19. Ibid. 152. 58 Ibid. 148–150. Ibid. 141–143. Holm/Kuhn, “Squatting and Urban Renewal in Berlin”. “Die HausbesetzerInnenbewegung in Ost-Berlin, Teil 2”, telegraph 10 (1995), http://www.squatter.w3brigade.de/content/geschichte/die-hausbesetzerbewegung-ost-berlin-teil2 (accessed 15 May 2015). “Da haben wir die ganze Hütte besetzt: Gesprächsrunde über die Ostberliner Hausbesetzungsbewegung in den 1990er Jahren”, telegraph 124 (2012), 65. azozomox, “Besetzen im 21. Jahrhundert: ‘Die Häuser denen die drin wohnen‘”, Reclaim Berlin: Soziale Kämpfe in der neoliberalen Stadt, ed. Andrej Holm (Berlin: Assoziation A, 2014): 273−304. Holm, “Berlin’s Gentrification Mainstream”. In total, 50 buildings with 3,040 housing units across Berlin were funded under the programme between 1991 and

2002 with a total funding sum of 256 million Euros. 66 Wolfgang Kil, “Prenzlauer Berg: Aufstieg und Fall einer Nische”, Die Stadt als Gabentisch: Beobachtungen der

aktuellen Städtebauentwicklung, ed. Hans G. Helms (Leipzig: Reclam, 1992): 508–520. 67 Dörfler, Gentrification in Prenzlauer Berg, 8. 68 An alliteration playing on an expensive organic lemonade and the inward-looking, non-political mood of the

Central European Biedermeier period as characteristics of an ecologically protected habitat. 69 Armin Kuhn, Vom Häuserkampf zur neoliberalen Stadt: Besetzungsbewegungen und Stadterneuerung in Berlin und

Barcelona (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2014). 70 The name takes up the acronym of the district committee responsible for housing matters during the GDR (Housing

71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

90 91 92 93 94

95 96 97 98 99 100

District Committee, WBA). At the end of the 1980s, tenants from Oderberger Straße and Rykestraße were successful in undermining these committees and thus able to prevent plans for demolition and new buildings in their streets. See Matthias Bernt and Andrej Holm, “Wir bleiben alle?“, Umkämpfte Räume, ed. StadtRat (Hamburg: Verlag Libertäre Assoziation/Verlag der Buchläden Schwarze Risse – Rote Straße, 1998), 158. Matthias Bernt, Rübergeklappt! Die “Behutsame Stadterneuerung” im Berlin der 90er Jahre (Berlin: Schelsky & Jeep, 2003). Jan Glatter, “Von der ‘Bronx’ zum Szeneviertel des ‘bohemian chic’: Die Entwicklung der Dresdener Äußeren Neustadt seit Ende der 1980er Jahre”, Himmelweit gleich? Europas ’89, ed. Weiterdenken/Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Sachsen (Dresden: baerens & fuss, 2009), 80; Una Giesecke, Die Äußere Neustadt: Aus der Geschichte eines Dresdner Stadtteils (Dresden: Sandstein, 2007), 51. Landeshauptstadt Dresden, Wohnungsmarktbericht 2004 (Dresden, 2005), 15; Landeshauptstadt Dresden, Wohnungsmarktbericht 2010 (Dresden, 2011), 12–14. Landeshauptstadt Dresden, Wohnungsmarktbericht 2004, 6; Glatter, “Gentrification in Ostdeutschland”. See the map at http://neustadt-leben.de/map/. Glatter, “Gentrification in Ostdeutschland”, 86. Ibid. 87. Miriam Jauslin, “Von schwarzen Schafen, heissen Kühen und bunten Leuten: Formen des urbanen Widerstandes in der Äußeren Neustadt” (unpublished thesis, Geographisches Institut der Universität Basel, 1997), chapter 4.1. Giesecke, Die Äußere Neustadt, 67. Glatter, “Gentrification in Ostdeutschland”, 145. Jauslin, “Von schwarzen Schafen, heissen Kühen und bunten Leuten”, chapter 4.2. IG Äußere Neustadt, “Lieber bewusst beenden als unmerklich verbluten!”, Presseerklärung zur Auflösung der IG Äußere Neustadt, December 2006, http://zope6.free.de/terminal/txt/301106 (accessed 15 May 2015). Ibid. Glatter, “Von der ‘Bronx’ zum Szeneviertel des ‘bohemian chic’”. Stadterneuerungsgesellschaft, Bericht zur vorbereitenden Untersuchung für die Gebiete Babelsberg-Nord und Babelsberg-Süd (Potsdam: Stadtrat für Bauen und Wohnen, 1992), 16. ProPotsdam, “Holländisches Viertel”, http://www.propotsdam.de/1492.html (acessed 15 May 2015). Gesellschaft für Planung, Sanierungsgebiet 2. Barocke Stadterweiterung: Konkretisierung der Sanierungsziele. Studie im Auftrag der Sanierungsträger (Potsdam: Potsdam GmbH, 2003), 19–21. Institut für Stadtforschung und Strukturplanung (IfS), Stadtentwicklungskonzept Wohnen für die Landeshauptstadt Potsdam (Potsdam: IfS, 2009), 121. Stadtkontor, Städtebaulicher Rahmenplan: Konkretisierung der Sanierungsgebiete Babelsberg Nord und Süd (Potsdam: IfS, 1999), https://www.potsdam.de/sites/default/files/documents/rahmenplan_komplett.pdf; Landeshauptstadt Potsdam, Stadtentwicklungskonzept Wohnen für die Landeshauptstadt Potsdam (Potsdam: Landeshauptstadt Potsdam, 1999), 14–16, https://www.potsdam.de/sites/default/files/documents/STEK_Wohnen_Potsdam_Juli2009.pdf (accessed 15 May 2015). Jakob Warnecke, Entwicklungslinien von Hausbesetzungen in Potsdam ab Ende 1989 (unpublished manuscript, 2014), 2–4. Ibid. 6. Hausprojekt Charlotte 28 Potsdam, “Hintergrund”, http://charlotte28.blogsport.de/ (accessed 15 May 2015). “Wohnungswirtschaft geht auf linke Projekte zu”, Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, 25 February 2012. See the overview at http://www.syndikat.org/pro/eichel/index.html, accessed 15 May 2015; Die Immobilienmärkte in der Metropolregion Berlin. Projektentwicklungen und Trends 2013 (Berlin: bulwiengesa AG, 2013), 26, http://www.businesslocationcenter.de/imperia/md/blc/wirtschaftsstandort/immobilien/content/studie2013_metropolr egion.pdf (accessed 15 May 2015). Ibid. 3. Jakob Warnecke, e-mail communication, 15 May 2014. Gnaudschun, Vorher müsst ihr uns erschießen. Stephanie Pigorsch and Matthias Lack, Kulturelle Nischen erobern die Stadt: Implizites Handlungswissen soziokultureller Initiativen in Potsdam, 1980−2012 (Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2015). Homepage of the squat ‘La Datscha’, http://ladatscha.blogsport.de (accessed 15 May 2015). Holm/Kuhn “Squatting and Urban Renewal in Berlin“.

101 Grashoff, Schwarzwohnen. 102 For the notion of “squats as a form of action” and a historical concept of squatter movements see Armin Kuhn,

103 104 105 106

“Hausbesetzungen”, Handbuch kritische Stadtgeographie, ed. Bernd Belina, Matthias Naumann and Anke Strüver (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2014), 206–211. Rink, “Der Traum ist aus”, 136. Prujit, “The Logic of Urban Squatting”, 32–34. Kuhn, Vom Häuserkampf zur neoliberalen Stadt. Holm, “Berlin’s Gentrification Mainstream”.