Allein machen sie dich ein

Basically each one of us is alone, you know?

Real friendship is actually hard to find.

Because it's all made so frantic, isn't it?

'Cause of the whole machinery.

It's functioning all together

The whole entertainment industry...

Music industry, clothings, and it's such a shit…

And all profit from one another.

Then it's pretended we are doing something together.

You are controlled everywhere, obliged which music to hear,

and everything as in the advertising.

The cigarettes advertising, you know? All the youths

want huge cars, cute chicks, all the same…

So they're trying to pretend. It's a replacement,

a replacement of problems, but no relaxing at all…

So that you forget that on Monday you have to slog away.

Those you are getting money from

they get it back immediately from you.

You get the money and you pay it back immediately.

If you want to change something you are marked

as having communist attitudes,

that your thinking is red... Many people have prejudices.

If somebody changes something, he wants only...

to change so that in effect .. something improves.

There are many people thinking you have red attitudes.

It's a completely wrong opinion. I find that every worker

every single worker, like me, you and everybody.

They are always complaining but they shut the mouth

because they have enough money to survive.

If they don't earn money anymore,

they would rebel more often, instead

of thinking about it sitting on the toilet.

How do you think you can change what you want to?

What does it mean: "I want to change"?

I cannot change anything.

Maybe I live the day when the workers

will go on the streets, not with flags but to complain

and protest. Because they know

that's going so bad...

Now not looking at it politically, but merely...

How could I say it?

The disfunction... that they don't know a way out,

that they would complain about it, and get organized

as a mass.

If you're alone they fuck you up.

they sack you

they laugh at you

and when you act against it

they lock you up in prison

and all you can comment is:

"That was a sledge- hammer, hey man."

How did it all begin?

The story of the squatting

We still lived with our parents

and we always met at night in the Wrangel youth centre.

in Kreuzberg, in the Naunystrasse.

We had a beer and chatted away

about work, but nothing more than dancing,

playing table tennis… There were a few fellows

they had a theater group, and with them we thought

if we could find us a space,

to shape our leisure-time without

any educator telling us what to do.

So we looked around Kreuzberg and then

we found on Mariannenplatz a 4 floors factory,

which was empty and we squatted it.

On July 3rd 1971, 300 youths squatted a vacant factory

on Mariannenplatz. It was the 1st successful squat in Berlin.

The youth centre was in horrible condition.

It had been vacant for a long time. It was full of rubbish.

We had to do a lot of things: electric installations,

we built walls and so on…

And we launched ourselves into that and we tried

to renovate the building creating working groups:

an apprentices' group and a schoolkids' one…

Then came the problem that most of us still lived

at home, but didn't want to anymore.

They wanted to leave their homes and there was no way

to live in the youth centre. So we tried

to rent some place, but it didn't work at all.

How can you get a flat when you are an apprentice,

you earn 200 Mrks and you're not yet 18.

You get no place,

At the corner on the other side of Mariannenplatz

there was the Bethanien hospital. Vacant since two years,

nice rooms, and we said: this is the house for us!

Bethanien was a former hospital,

which was closed and was vacant.

It was heated in Winter and used for nothing.

The people of Kreuzberg got angry of that and said:

"Why shouldn't people live there?"

We took the former nurses' house.

So many rooms… About 90.

two big spaces, where each one of us could have his room,

community rooms, and a kitchen.

There was enough room to live. It wasn't a big block

but not too small either, for a collective.

So we gathered in the youth centre

with different groups and we reasoned about what to do.

As we squatted the youth centre with a big party

we thought: "Let's open!" There was an occasion:

Georg von Rauch was shot to death. There was a teach-in at the Uni.

We distributed flyers and invoked squatting.

The TU was crowded out, and then 600 people

came to Mariannenplatz and helped us.

About 100, 200 people entered the house,

the rest stayed outside and didn't climb over the wall.

The cops were already there, and forced the people apart,

they drove in with cars and started beating.

The people in the house felt good,

they were glad. It was our house.

Peace to the shacks, war to the palaces

Hands off the Rauch Haus or there will be troubles!

The City Councillor for Youth, Erwin Beck, came

to negotiate with us.

We said we wouldn't go, so he assured us

that we could spend the night inside,

until the negotiations would begin the next day.

The negotiation resulted in a temporary contract

for 6 weeks. The situation in Berlin

was that the SPD tried to exhibit us

to show they were making a youth-politics and tried

to attribute to themselves the work we had done.

So when the Rauch Haus was squatted for about 9 months

the City Council said: in order not to be fucked up

they forced us to sign a new user contract.

It contained supervision like in the other asylums,

we weren't allowed to choose our social workers anymore

and we had to meet regularly with the City Council.

Moreover we had the obligation to produce

an annual report about what we do,

with statistical data about who lives here

how old the poeple are and things like that.

Another condition was that the City Council could

in any moment terminate if we wouldn't respect

these points. That meant: kicked out without notice.

So we decided not to sign the contract

but to start a huge campaign.

And we discussed what we could do.

We had the good idea to inform the population

first of all in Kreuzberg,

then the young people in Berlin

and in West Germany.

If they kick us out, we are on the street.

We have to find a home. Each one of us

knows how difficult it is to get a flat, if you are

young and you have long hairs. Best you have

to be married or... I don't know what more.

Searching for home is to find ourselves

in a real horror, that's why we will try

with every means to keep this house.

We need many people. We'll make a demonstration

where the bigger number of people should come, so that

they see that the people support us.

A vacant Bethanien and ever rising rents!

Stand up against that!

We want the City Council at the negotiation table!

Then we thought about what also we could do,

and we went to the youth centres to inform.

We did also a teach-in in the Uni, with about

2000 people there, and then we went to the youth centres

and we told them what our house actually is,

and what our intentions are, but that the City Council

always tries to block our work.

Now as a conclusion,

we want to issue a resolution, and we want you to vote for it.

Those who are present support the demand

of the Georg von Rauch Haus, about further negotiations

with the City Council and with the Kreuzberg District Council.

We are definitively against the closing

and demand a new contract without supervision and controls

and no eviction without notice. TU Audimax 7.12.72

DID SQUATTERS BUILD THE BOMBS?

All the time we had lots of troubles with the police

We got an awful lot of police raids at our place.

At night they controlled people's identity cards.

The press used the raids against us and tried

to present us to the public as criminals and bums.

Police discovered bomb-workshop

Group dorms, protest songs, stinking kitchen & a cat

So we made a newspaper.

Every one in the house was involved in it.

It was really nice and the people had fun.

It had contributions from everyone living here.

People said it was a good newspaper.

We printed 10.000 copies.

…no, 30.000. So we distribute it everywhere, in Berlin

in Kreuzberg, we sent it also to West Germany,

to the youth centres and we called for solidarity.

Then we made another demonstration

in Kreuzberg.

"Hands off the Rauch Haus or there will be troubles!"

The City Council broke the negotiation.

then 3 days before the end of the contract

they offered to enter the negotiation again.

Then we all showed up and made some achievements.

We got rid of the eviction without notice clause.

Now we have a 5 months term.

The "supervision paragraph" was reduced

to only some cooperation issues.