20 Days of squatting of an Autonomous Space in Cologne
az koeln - 06.05.2010 19:40
On 16th of April 2010, around 160 activists and supporters squatted an empty building in Cologne in order to establish an autonomous space for independent politix, art and culture. After 20 days of occupation many things have been pushed forward.
police fence
banner
consensus
the squat
the squat
hang out in the backyard
construction week banner
[house-Keeping]
The huge two-story building provides many rooms and several halls and has been cleaned up almost completely during the first days of its squatting. Electricity and water has been re-established, toilets have been fixed and the whole building gets continuously beautified by many hands and minds. After some improvisation, many of the rooms got a temporary and constantly changing identity, like the community kitchen, the info-point, the foyer, several ateliers, many working and sleeping rooms, chill-out areas, concert and party spaces and many more small and unexpected utilization. There are still many things to fix, to move, to colorize and to reclaim but a basic infrastructure now exists.
[re-programming]
Since the beginning, many people started to organize noncommercial events, workshops, parties and concerts or political groups just conducted their meetings there. Some examples: a movie screening with discussion about Squatting in Cologne during the 80ies, realtime street-art workshop, a small linux install party, more movie screenings thematically ranging from advanced vandalism over street fighting to immigration from Iran and Kurdistan, bicycle repair workshops, self-defense for women or roll-out of improvised concerts and dj-nights. The community kitchen tries to serve tasty dishes almost every evening thus squatters and visitors are most of the time well fed.
[publicity]
The reaction of the local media was surprisingly positive. Colognes daily newspaper Der Kölner Stadtanzeiger released two predominantly positive articles [article#1 and article#2] about the squatting action and its goals. Additionally, several interviews have been conducted with radio stations like Funkhaus Europa and Campus Radio. Nonetheless, own media and articles has been released by the squatters since the beginning of the action, like open letters to the city, a video message and constant updates on the squat's blog. All press releases, photos and videos can also be found under  http://unsersquat.blogsport.eu/presse.
[politixx]
Local politixx claims to support the autonomous space as well, like the district mayor Markus Thiele (social party - SPD) who unofficially visited the squat on the first weekend. Several local parties expressed solidarity like the Green (Die Grünen) and Left (Die Linke) parties. City major Jürgen Roters (SPD) didn’t comment the action until now which seems to be a step backward since his supportive declaration for more autonomous spaces and critical culture during the last local election in summer 2009. Many of the conservatives of the Christian party (CDU) react with their typical patterns of rejection and aggression and try to enforce the eviction of the squat.
[the local scene]
The support of the local political and arty scene is great. Many groups declared solidarity and are involved in the daily business and the organization of events, from Antifa and student protest movement (Bildungsstreik) to initiatives of unemployed people (KEAs) and non-organized punxx. Solidarity was also declared from cities throughout NRW (North-Rhine-Westphalia), like AZ Aachen, the autonomous space in the city of Aachen.
[the neighbors]
From the beginning, close contact to the neighbors has been tried to establish. The Initial neighborhood meeting on the first weekend was not that good visited but acceptance of the squat is constantly rising. This showed off at an improvised street party on the second weekend. Families, elderly and kids from the block came along for coffee, cake, talking, soccer and a tour through the building. Several kids already reclaimed and beautified their space inside and outside the building since the first days of the occupation. They cleaned up the most beautiful room in the building and constructed a soccer goal. From now on, neighbors are invited for discussion and dialog on the weekly neighborhood-cafe which is conducted every Sunday on the the free space in front of the squat. In case of trouble and questions, neighbors can call the squat directly on a neighborhood phone.
[the owners]
The only ones who don’t seem to like the idea of an autonomous space are the owners of the building. The so called Rhine Estate, a subsidiary company of Sparkasse Köln (a bank in public hands), still claims that the building is in bad shape, almost collapsing and not suitable for any usage. This claim was already disproved by an independent report initiated by the squatters. The first meeting between a delegation of the squatters and Rhine Estate didn’t evolve into an acceptable dialog. The only concrete outcome was a letter from the bank that requested the squatters to leave the building. A more detailed description of the meeting can be found on the website of the AZ. Until no, no further conversation happened with the owners despite an invitation by the squatters.
[repression]
Last but not least, its necessary to mention police activity. During the first days of the action, police was constantly present. ID checks were common in order to prevent people to enter the squat. On the first Saturday, the police surrounded the squat almost completely and prevented many people to reach it by issuing area and neighborhood bans. Nonetheless, about 100 people gathered near the building and overran the police barriers in a spontaneous demonstration which finally forced the police to give up their positions. Since then, the police acts in general more in the background and deescalating and pass the squat just from time to time on their daily routes.
But even if police acts more passively around the squat, at least one incident of police violence was reported. On the second weekend, two visitors of the squat got controlled on their way back home. One of them tried to inform friends but could finish his phone call because three policemen pushed him to the ground immediately and started to kick and beat him various times. He got arrested afterward and was kept into police custody until the next morning.
[background]
The squatting of the building is the result of one and a half year of constant actions in public space, among them a party in bank-halls with mobile soundsystem (Finanztanz) or two temporary squatting actions [weekend squat and new-years squat]. The actions were conducted by a large group of people known as the campaign Pyranha whose goal is to establish an autonomous space is Cologne because the city lacks a lot of those spaces. The few existing ones like the LC36 are too little and more non-commercial space which offers opportunities for experiments, new forms of politix and culture and where people treat each other respectfully, is needed badly.
[so, whats next?]
Till now, the squat is threaded by eviction and a real dialog with politix and owners couldn't be established. Anyways, solidarity is great which will be expressed in a demonstration through the city-center on this Thursday, the 06th of May.
Further on, the squat is organizing an autonomous festival on the next weekend (8th and 9th of May) with readings, installations, exhibitions, d.i.y. workshops, parties and an open discussion about the future and chances of the autonomous space where everybody is asked to come and dump in ideas, critics and suggestions . As more we are, as more difficult it will be to evict us.
Support from outside Cologne is always welcome as well. For more information, contact the squat directly via email  squatkoeln@riseup.net
kraaken gaat door - 1, 2, 3, viele autonome zentren und besetzte häuser in Köln und überall – let's push more things forward
 E-Mail: squatkoeln@riseup.net  Website: http://unsersquat.blogsport.eu
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