M HKA Ensembles

Article

Collection: Studio Chris Reinecke.

Interview with Chris Reinecke in the magazine Alarm, Nr.2, Mietersolidarität, 1970

ALARM – Newspaper of the Tenant Solidarity Düsseldorf

Blessed Christmas! 100% rent increase!

 

 

Alexander Goeb, 30, is an editor at Düsseldorf newspaper 'Express'. In numerous articles he reported on the Mietersolidarität Düsseldorf [Tenant Solidarity Düsseldorf] and their efforts to organise needy tenants to stop rent usury and land speculation. A few days ago, he had the following conversation with the 'MS'.

 

Vraag: De grote huurdersprotesten zijn voorbij, hoewel grondspeculatie, oneerlijke huisuitzettingen en willekeurige huurverhogingen doorgaan, schijnt de huurderscene lijkt in slaap te vallen. Is de Mietersolidarität aan het inslapen?

 

Q: The big tenant protests are over, although land speculation, unfair evictions and arbitrary rent increases continue, the tenant scene seems to be dropping off to sleep. Is the Mietersolidarität falling asleep?

 

MS: We don't think you can speak of the sleep of the tenants and increasingly anchored  Mietersolidaritäten. On the contrary, lately there have been major self-help campaigns by threatened tenants. Tenants were active in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Düsseldorf. They successfully occupied houses – in Cologne, for example, an occupation by parents and their children meant that spaces were immediately made available for a kindergarten.

 

The recent establishment of an emergency shelter for tenants on the Pöhlenweg in Düsseldorf – 50 families – also makes it clear: the more victims unite, the faster those in charge must do something about the housing shortage. The sensational tenant actions are the tip of the iceberg. The daily work takes place below the water surface: the organisation of the tenant struggle. Meetings, answering letters, making flyers, etc. After a series of successful actions, the M.S. has decided on an organisational form that aims to make the fight against rent terror and land speculation more efficient (see p. 2). The iceberg will come to the surface, it will show how strong the will of the people is to fight against injustice.

 

Q: The government is trying to draft law initiatives, always under pressure from a desolate coalition partner. In what form can the Mietersolidarität take a stand for or against the government plans? Will it do so clearly and unequivocally if necessary, even at the risk of being dismissed as a band of troublemakers?

 

MS: Insults by some people, such as band of troublemakers etc., against the MS, i.e. against the threatened tenants, cannot prevent those tenants from investigating in detail the initiatives or rather the reactions of the government to the flood of tenant protests. The MS has drawn up a clear programme and clear requirements. This programme reflects the tenant needs, and starting from this programme, we have to criticise the federal government's recent moves.

 

M.S.D. Programme

1. Down with the Weißen Kreisen [White Circles].

2. Introduction of legal tenant protection.

3. Provisional rent freeze! Rent may not exceed 12 percent of the monthly income.

4 More social housing! Earmarking of social housing after repayment of public means for at least 10 years!

5. Ban on all private brokerage activities in public housing. Instead, creation of social housing companies.

6. Tenant participation in, and tenant control of, housing planning and administration.

7. Transfer of land towards common ownership  and thus elimination of land speculation as one of the most urgent tasks to overcome the rent usury.

 

In our view, the next point in the bill is particularly damaging. Rent increases of 50 to 100 percent are in sight. Owners may then terminate the lease with their tenants if the old lease does not provide them with a 'reasonable market return on own property'. The 'market rate' linked to the credit costs is now around 9 percent, i.e. someone who has built 3 apartments of 60 square meters each with DM 216,000 [Deutsche Mark] can, after deducting all repair and administration costs, collect an annual rental profit of DM 19,440, which would correspond to a monthly rent of about DM 870 per apartment!

 

Are those the future rents? If the Bundestag would pass this bill, with these laws, homeowners would have the opportunity to justify rent increases of 50 and 100 percent. And then one talks about a law in the interest of the tenants.

 

Q: On one of the latest tenant protests, the comparison was made: the [liberal] FDP only got 15,000 votes in Düsseldorf in the last local elections and thus had, in addition to some city council members, a mayor who receives a monthly bonus of DM 7,500 just for his work in the council of the 'fair saints'. What does the Mietersolidarität want to do with the nearly 26,000 votes gathered in recent weeks and months against the 'Weißen Kreise' and for the 'reintroduction of legal tenant protection'?

 

Yes. More than 26,000 Düsseldorfians have rallied behind these demands. We receive new signatures every day. The M.S. will submit these 26,000 signatures to the parliament of federal state NRW [North Rhine-Westphalia] on behalf of the beleaguered tenants and will submit the bill on rent usury, land speculation and the abolition of the 'Weißen Kreise' in NRW.

 

Concerning the signatures, I would like to add one more thing. 26,000 signatures cannot be jeered off. Even if some politicians feel uncomfortable with such solidarity. Politicians should rather think of representing the interests of the population. The largest part of the population, the working part, the socially disadvantaged and the elderly suffer from rent usury, housing shortage, arbitrariness by brokers and land speculation. Therefore: Away with the 'Weißen Kreis'. That's why the M.S. goes to parliament with signatures!

 

Q: With your action and an information week, you've created a small 'mass base' on the theatre forecourt. What is your experience with the 'masses'? How do you see the possibility of solidarity beyond this specific emergency? Is it true that, when the direct threat subsides, there's no more solidarity?

 

MS: It's true that the campaign was a success for the tenant movement. In the Mieterproteststadt [tenant protest town], this week 8,000 signatures were gathered.

Through this action, the tenants have noticed that the M.S. promotes their interests because, as the association of the beleaguered tenants, it is determined to cooperate with all tenants until the causes of the housing shortage have been removed. As in the Pöhlenweg, the weapon of the threatened tenants was identified: solidarity!

 

With one tenant, the owners, construction companies and land speculators can do whatever they want. If 50 families (see Pöhlenweg) support each other and join forces with the M.S.,  that won't work anymore!

 

No one should be allowed to enrich themselves at the expense of the majority of the population – through land speculation, too high rents, too few schools and kindergartens. By deliberately preventing housing construction in order to be able to 'squeeze' the tenants for as long as possible. Because if there were enough houses for everyone, they wouldn't be able to extort us anymore! On the issue of solidarity beyond this particular case: solidarity can be exercised through active participation in the M.S. This means that when one's own needs have been met, there's still the need of other people. 

 

Q: Perhaps in particular those tenants who  are not in acute need will effectively take a critical distance here and there. They suspect disaster. In a report about the action on forecourt of the theatre, a Düsseldorf newspaper wrote: 'The young gentlemen with apparently excellent East Berlin connections'. What is the political place of the M.S.? What is its position concerning the DKP [German Communist Party]? Is it a purely targeted campaign or does the M.S. envisage a political competence beyond the tenant activities? How would you formulate it, then?

 

In this issue, Hubert Maessen of of the SPD's Young Socialists in Düsseldorf takes a closer look on the hate articles of Mr Schade of the NRZ [Neue Ruhr Zeitung], which are comparable to those of the [far-right] Deutsche National-Zeitung. The MS is an independent militant organisation of beleaguered tenants. The basis for the work of the M.S. is stated in their programme. The M.S. is therefore not an offshoot of any political party. With us, the tenants organise themselves. As with the laying of the foundation stone opposite the 'Alte Messe' [old exhibition site] the M.S. collaborates with all democratic forces that are ready to fight in the interests of the tenants, and to support our demands.

 

As for  the last part of your question: the rent and land problem is a social problem and can therefore not be treated separately from other social problems. The M.S. has a right to exist as long as the causes of rent and housing shortage have not been eliminated. The work of the M.S. is therefore of the utmost importance, politically, also beyond the rent problem, if we continue to succeed in spreading the idea of self-help and solidarity.

 

Q: Isn't there a certain impotence in the face of the omnipotence of the 'Dusseldorf Fraction' and the power of the red tape bureaucracy? After the last Unterbezirkskonferenz of the [socialist] SPD, the SPD, ruling in Düsseldorf, is obliged to ensure that the 'alte Messegelände' remains in possession of the city and that social housing is built on the site. A council decision stands in the way of this fantastic plan, as do the political institutions [Christian Democratic] CDU and FDP. So what then do the helpful  SPD men, the Young Socialists and the M.S. actually do? What if the land is actually sold to the highest bidder, giving away the city's last major grounds!

 

MS: Very early on, we've asked to build social housing on the old fairgrounds and we applaud the fact that Düsseldorf's 'Jusos' [Young Socialists] have rallied behind these demands. What we specifically do if the Council goes against the interests of the people, remains to be seen. We are ready to take strong action against this injustice, with all democratic groups. The politicians in the Council should not underestimate the 26,000 votes! They can have an impact in the next municipal elections!

 

Q: In Düsseldorf too, due to the shortage of tenants, numerous buildings have been vacant for years. In Frankfurt, houses were squatted that are still inhabited today. The people support this. Now mayor Möller is no mayor Becker, and in Frankfurt there is no FDP involved in the government either. But still: do such campaigns also have a chance of success in Düsseldorf? Will you resort to this means of protest if necessary?

 

MS: Months ago, through squatters' actions the MS drew attention to the fact that the city possesses empty houses that have stood empty for years, even though 25,000 people are looking for a home here. In letters from the population, there was talk about other empty houses and we were asked us to occupy them. Such squats (e.g. Frankfurt, Munich) are one of the most effective tools in the fight against unfair housing policies, so the M.S. also considers these instruments.

 

 

ALARM IN THE FEDERAL STATE PARLIAMENT

 

So far, 260,000 tenants have signed against the Weißen Kreis, and for legal tenant protection. A reason for the MIETERSOLIDARITÄT to send a letter to the president of the state parliament and the political groups, requesting a public inquiry on behalf of the threatened tenants.

 

After the Mietersolidarität Düsseldorf and self-help organisations throughout Germany had been paying attention to the catastrophe of the existing housing shortage for months, on  October 3, the DGB [Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund,  the German Trade Union Federation] and the Mieterbund [Tenant Association] too organised a protest demonstration at the forecourt of the theater in Düsseldorf. Speakers were the chairman of the Mieterbund, Nevermann, SPD member of parliament Trabalski and Michels, 'Land' president of the DGB . During the rally, 'on request', Nevermann half-heartedly repeated the main demand of the 'MS': 'Down with the Weißen Kreis'.

Months ago, CDU city councillor Lipscher from Düsseldorf jeered at students who were looking for a home, with the words: 'Why don't you build your own houses.' The Mietersolidarität Düsseldorf heeded this statement by a 'citizen representative', and from 19 to 26 September built a protest city on the forecourt of the theatre. For a whole week, retirees, young couples, students, children and guest workers, who were all looking for a home,  demonstratively found shelter in the small houses. In the local press, the Mietersolidarität campaign received predominantly positive reactions (on this matter, cf. the report on p. 2).

Add to your list