Against the sellout of the city!
For the preservation of Hermannstraße 48!
Back in 2018, the tenants of Hermannstraße 48 founded the Hausverein Hermannshöfe e.V., to make the then owner an offer to buy the building. But Mrs. Schlosshauer indignantly refused. She felt it was a plot to have founded an association behind her back. And she insisted she would never sell her houses. As if. At the end of December 2020, she sold the property to Hermannshof48 Grundbesitz mbH, a limited liability company bought off the shelf at short notice, which, due to family connections, can be attributed to the network around Sahrs Immobilien from Glauchau (Saxony). The district of Neukölln informed us that it was examining the right of first refusal. In the following two months, which the short pre-purchase period offered us, we worked hard to get the chance to permanently remove our houses from the real estate market.
We mobilised and networked the housing community in order to win them over to a common struggle and held countless plenums where we discussed and made decisions together. We set up working groups based on division of labour, in which we outsourced tasks, pursued them under intense time pressure. We went in search of non-profit buyers and, together with our friends from the Mietshäusersyndikat, developed a plan to buy our houses ourselves as a community and transfer them into self-administration. To this end, we founded the Hermanes48 GmbH, which can enter into the purchase contract as a third-party buyer. and is controlled democratically by our house association. We have been working on and were able to negotiate a bank loan commitment that would have enabled us to pay long-term to guarantee socially acceptable rents so that we could all stay.
Within a few weeks you had assured us of financial support worth millions, to raise the equity for the loan through direct lending. Wow. We were left speechless! We were able to put on rallies and generate vocal press and PR coverage that mobilised a tremendous amount of support, in order to motivate politicians to exercise the right of first refusal and to address our concerns around the general plight of Berlin’s worrying rental and urban development.
Our struggle should be seen in the context of the Berlin rent movement, to which we feel a sense of belonging and commitment. We were able to convince the district that we were certainly capable of buying and that we were an organised housing community that could achieve the preservation goals of Milieuschutz (neighbourhood protection) in the long term. In this way we have followed the model of the model of the Mietshäusersyndikat and our conviction that even large houses should belong to those who live in them. At the end of February, the district issued a notice of pre-purchase in favour of our GmbH. We celebrated!
In March, the first buyer filed an appeal against the pre-purchase notice. To our astonishment the owner also signalled through an objection that she would not like it if the houses belonged to her residents. She would have received the same purchase price from us. From both sides lawsuits were filed against the district’s pre-purchase decision. We were prepared for a long process which would delay our ownership.
We remained active. We worked on foundations that would ensure that our community’s willingness to buy would be secured for years to come. We made preparations so that if the plaintiffs suddenly withdrew, we could quickly enter into the purchase contract and start with the necessary reconstruction work. We remained loud and political. We did our part to keep the rental policy disaster in the public eye and to report on our pre-purchase case. We continued to network with rental policy initiatives in the city, advised and supported some houses with the Mietshäusersyndikat whose pre-purchases were under review. The social media campaign Wohnfabrik, together other houses, was meant to draw attention to the fact that, apart from us, there are many other tenants in this city in former factory premises, who are brazenly deprived of their right to live there through tenuous commercial contracts. This illegal situation makes it much more difficult to apply the already modest protective measures offered by the law on residential tenancies and neighbourhood protection.
On 9.11.2021, the Federal Administrative Court ruled that pre-purchase in neighbourhood protection areas is not possible if, at the time of sale, a property is built on in accordance with the construction plan and conservation measures at the time of the sale. Speculations about future changes of use and the consequences of displacement cannot serve to justify a pre-purchase. Today, the ruling makes pre-purchases in neighbourhood protection areas practically impossible. Finalised aversion agreements risk not being adhered to, and the districts have withdrawn their pending pre-purchase notices, which after the ruling no longer had a chance of standing up in court. Although the particular case of H48 had been under consideration for a longer time, we knew that this would almost certainly crush our dream of self-managed housing, and our houses would go to the original buyers. Despite this prospect, H48 initiated the alliance New Right of First Refusal Now! which within a very short time was able to mobilise the lion’s share of rental politics initiatives, organise houses in Berlin and find some support in the political arena. In order to raise public awareness of the fatal consequences of the ruling and to put political pressure on the government for a speedy amendment of the Building Code, H48 continued its press work. We knew that this change in the law would no longer save us as a pending case and that our demand for an interim solution would remain wishful thinking. Indeed, the district withdrew its pre-purchase decision for Hermannstraße 48 in the spring of 2022, to our great sadness.
No, we did not give up. This catastrophe for us and for neighbourhood protection in the entire city did not stop us from continuing. How could it? Giving up is not an option! This has long since ceased to be our business alone, and we have made every effort to ensure that it is not. We have been able to establish ourselves as a player in the field of rental politics over the past two and a half years. We have been able to build a network of supporters and political comrades-in-arms in a ring of solidarity around us, improve and pass on the skills and knowledge needed for the struggle, and draw public attention to our case, so that we are able to influence the discourse around Berlin’s urban plight. We see it as our responsibility towards an impressive rental politics movement that is unparalleled outside of Berlin.
We continued to be available to the press to draw attention the successive erosion of neighbourhood protection legislation. We continued to give speeches at demonstrations to counteract the rental disaster, and supported houses to organise themselves. We accompanied the first steps of the displacement process in our area with press coverage and a demonstration to feed the discourse on rental policy from the grassroots up. Because what we kick up a fuss about has happened silently a thousand times elsewhere.
When the owners approached us through their lawyer last autumn and signalled a willingness to sell, we were also ready. Within a very short time we provided a non-profit buyer in the form of the city and the state. We would have been happy to get the owners out from the mess of having tied themselves to one of the city’s biggest problems in a time of crisis. But they were unwise. They responded as little to requests for negotiations from the city and the state as they did to our countless attempts to contact them.
Moreover, we have prepared ourselves for contract cancellations in the factory building. We are ready to take the long legal path. We invite you to come with us on this path, so that this drama will not end as a tragedy, but a celebration of urban politics!
More than 140 people live and work at Hermannstraße 48 – some of them have been doing so for decades. H48 houses families, individuals and large shared flats. There are also various businesses such as a wood workshop, a hairdressing salon, locksmiths/shoemakers and therapy centers.
Our tenant community is a cross-section of Neukölln neighborhoods: pensioners, children, students, wage labourers, unemployed and self-employed persons, artists and craftspeople. Flint (Women*, Lesbian*, Inter*, Non-binary* and Trans*) and BIPoC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) persons live here, as well as disabled persons and people who simply cannot afford a rent increase. For all of us, Hermannstraße 48 is our home and shelter.
We enjoy living and working here and want to continue to do so. Other affordable residential or commercial space will probably no longer be available to any of us.
The inhabitants of the factory building in the 2nd courtyard find themselves in a particularly precarious situation. The large shared flats, which have in some cases been here for 40 years, only have commercial rental contracts. These offer no cancellation protection.
It doesn’t take much imagination to predict what investors want to do here: kick out the large shared flats and replace them with luxury lofts or start-ups.
One shared flat has already had its rental contract cancelled, and its renters were forcibly evicted when they didn’t want to hand over the keys. It is important for us to preserve these spaces, which enable alternative living possibilities beyond the nuclear family and one-person apartments.
In addition to apartments and businesses, H48 is also home to the project room, financed on a solidarity basis. It is managed by various initiatives and groups and is used for lectures, film screenings, discussions and many other events. The space is also used by the house community for regular meetups and table football sessions (not during the pandemic, of course).
The project room is an important political networking space in and for the neighbourhood. Such spaces have, it goes without saying, consistently been threatened in the past and many have faced eviction.
I found this little refuge in the backyard of Hermannstrasse with my two cats, at the last minute, 4 years ago. I love the view from my kitchen and the quietness in my apartment, although it is in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Neukölln. For the future, I hope that no luxury redevelopments are done, and that the rents remain affordable - and I would really love flowers outisde the windows and green space on the garage roof.
The wood workshop Buhl and Kircher has been working in the Hermannshof factory building for 19 years. We manufacture furniture and interior fittings in the traditional way, our clients are located in Berlin and especially Neukölln and the surrounding districts. Since the start-up of our backyard carpentry in Neukölln, we have successfully trained 15 apprentices as associate tradesmen and women. We are in good neighborly relations with the other units in the industrial yard and the associated residential buildings. We sincerely hope to continue practicing our commitment to traditional craftsmanship at Hermannshof in the next decade, and that our jobs and apprenticeships will remain secure for the future.
I moved to Berlin ten years ago and, like so many, have stuck around. Not least because I felt so comfortable in my large shared flat in H48. For me, friendships for life were formed in this house. In the meantime, I live alone, but I have remained loyal to house number 48. It was a great luck for me to get this apartment and I invested a lot of love and time in it. I wish that my neighborhood will be preserved and that everyone can stay here. I also wish for the end of capitalism as soon as possible.
I am a professional carpenter and have completely built and renovated my apartment myself. When I moved in, it was pretty run-down, I had to scrape old newspapers from the nazi times from the walls, under several layers of wallpaper. Since that time, over 30 years ago, my plants have also been growing. Once in the 90s a fire shut down the power supply in many sections of the building for a few days, which created an impressive atmosphere: There were candles everywhere in the windows and some neighbors came to my house to cook, because I had a gas stove that was independent of electricity. Today I am happy about the house meetings (Haustresen), through which I also get to know my neighbors.
I came to Germany in 1972 when I was 16 years old and have lived in this apartment since 1982. I raised my two children here and am very happy that my grandchildren come to visit so often now. I love living here in this district. When I go to Hermannstrasse, to the bakery or shopping, I know people everywhere. Many of my friends live here in the neighborhood, so it's very important to me to be able to continue living here.
I used to be responsible for checking in luggage at Deutsche Bahn. Since the fall of the Wall, I've been retired and have been taking care of mail and parcels here in the buildings ever since. The mail delivery person already has my phone number and calls me before coming by. Often the post office and other courriers bring parcels directly to me and I make sure that the residents are informed. I also help if the post office is looking for certain people in the house. I really hope that I can continue to stay in my apartment.
We moved to Hermannstraße 48 some years ago and love both the quiet in the backyard and the hustle and bustle at the front of the street. We live a rich community and neighborhood life both within the house and between the houses - even as the pandemic makes it impossible to have gatherings, house parties and courtyard parties at the moment. When our first child and, a little later, our second child were on the way, we decided that we would like to continue living with our flatmates in the flat-sharing community. We wish for the house community that we can all live permanently in the H48 - and that we can have agency and determine together how we do that!
When my father's carpentry shop in Izmir burned down completely, my original plan was to come to Germany for only one year, to work and save up for building a new carpentry business together with a friend. But I fell in love and started living with my wife in Hermannstrasse 48 in 1987. I founded a limited company for concrete, steel, masonry and roof construction work, and I found office space directly in the same building complex. My commute is extraordinarily short: down the stairs, over to our second backyard, into the factory building. I hope that no major disruptions will come our way, and that I will be able to hand over my business to be able to travel when I retire.
Another story is an amateur porn film shoot in Hermannstrasse 48: In the 90s there was a small group of amateur filmmakers and porn actors and actresses among the residents of the house, who shot explicit scenes in the Hermannshof factory building and especially in our elevator. No further details about this...
The decision of the Federal Administrative Court of November 9th, 2021 renders the municipal right of first refusal useless as an instrument against displacement. This is unacceptable! In Berlin alone, tenants in over 9.000 flats are acutely threatened. That is why we have joined forces with other initiatives and housing associations in the initiative "New right of first refusal now!" More on this under 'Press'.
Our longtime neighbour Arslan Demir passed away on May 26, 2021. We are deeply saddened by the sudden loss of this warm-hearted and genuine person. Hermannstraße 48 was home to his carpentry business as well as his apartment. Arslan Demir was a very sociable and enriching part of our neighbourhood and community. May he rest in peace.
The housing situation of the people in the factory building at H48 (and elsewhere!) is particularly precarious. Scroll down to our "press release" section to find out more. *The picture says: "Living with a commercial lease? Protection against dismissal also for (former) factory floors!"
Both the new buyer and the previous owner have filed an objection against the right of first refusal (Vorkaufsrecht). This is now being examined by the district – and the uncertainty continues… *The picture says: "The struggle continues, our fight continues: Buyer and previous owner file an objection against preemption."
Good news: the district is exercising the right of first refusal (Vorkaufsrecht) in our favour! We ourselves are therefore the third-party buyers. Unfortunately, things are still not yet 100% certain. More soon! *The picture says: "We are the official third party buyer."
We have translated the speeches of our rally and uploaded them as PDFs.You can find them in the Press section.
Wow! Despite the freezing cold, several hundred people came to our rally to show solidarity. We are very grateful for the support! Thank you!
On Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021 at 3 p.m. we will demonstrate in front of our house against displacement. Come by and support us!
Press Release 11th of May 2023 as PDF
(english)
Press release 6th December 2022 as PDF
(english)
Joint press release of our initiative „New right of first refusal now!“ 20th November 2021 as PDF
(german)
Joint press release of the „Wohnfabrik“ campaign 15th September 2021 as PDF
(german)
Press release 8th September 2021 as PDF
(english)
Press release 17th May 2021 as PDF
(english)
press release 26th February 2021 as PDF
(english)
Our press release as PDF
(german)
The speeches of our first rally for you to read as PDF:
