Hambi bleibt

On my current trip to Germany I used the public holiday yesterday to visit a small pocket of anarchy, the Hambacher Forst.

RWE, a local power company, operates a huge open surface mine destroying a 12000 year old forrest in the process. This is particularly bizarre since Germany has already decided to quit coal based power production and as the last act of an outdated technology that the people do no longer support, a rare piece of nature will be removed.

There is a broad front of people trying to protect the forrest and a part of them are anarchist activists that since 6 years are living in the wood and organise a non-violent opposition. Of course these are constantly harassed by the police that has military surrounded the entire woodlands protecting the interests of corrupt political corporations. They activists have build more than 70 treehouses that I wanted to visit, but the last one was destroyed by the police just the day before my arrival.

Below some of the pictures I took.

This was one of the tree hut villages and on some of the trees still have clothes hanging in them. The police had just destroyed all of the houses and turned them into piles of chipped wood the day before.

A ground based anarchist camp with a banner stating 'Anarchy instead of Germany'. Could not agree more!

Some beautiful houses build from just wood, mud, stone and trash. Sad that all of this will most likely end up being destroyed by the police. But the people there are used to it, the police tears it down and they rebuild.

A small shop where everything is free. As a capitalist this makes me a little mad. These hippies do a lot of great work, if the only could also understand economy...
ITS NOT A SHOP IF ITS FREE, IT IS A CHARITY! :).

For anyone able to read german, here is their 'official' webpage.

HAMBI BLEIBT!