A few days before the planned evacuation of the village of Lützerath, numerous climate activists gathered there on Sunday. Representatives of the action alliance “Lützerath unräumbar”, consisting of several groups, confirmed their determination to oppose the announced eviction by the police. The action alliance had previously invited to a public action training and a village walk. Organizations and initiatives such as “Ende Gelände”, “Fridays for Future”, “All Villages Remain” and “Last Generation” have joined forces in the alliance.
The energy company RWE wants to tear down Lützerath in the Rhineland in order to mine the coal underneath. The group emphasizes that this is necessary to ensure the energy supply. The opencast mine is already close to the remaining buildings. From Tuesday, an order from the district of Heinsberg will provide the authorities with the legal basis for an eviction. The village is to be excavated because the energy company RWE wants to expand the Garzweiler opencast mine and promote the coal lying beneath the site.
Opponents of coal have also settled in the rural district. They live in squats, tents and tree houses. The original residents have long since moved away. The resettlement of Lützerath and surrounding towns began in 2006. According to the authorities, the town is to be cleared from mid-January – but it could be faster. Preparations for this have been in full swing since the beginning of the week.
“This is just the beginning”
In the opinion of climate activist Luisa Neubauer, politicians did not expect so much resistance to the demolition of the village of Lützerath on the edge of the Rhenish opencast lignite mine. “You can tell that the power in this place was apparently underestimated,” said Neubauer on Sunday of the dpa in Lützerath. “Here, a society shows that it understands that everything is at stake. The village here is overrun with people who have come from all over the country. And that is not an uncomplicated journey. There are many blocked roads and police barricades. But people take it upon themselves.”
One was determined to keep up the resistance to the eviction for a long time, said Neubauer. “We’re giving everything now. This is just the beginning. The big demo is next Saturday. What I find so impressive is that there are people from the most diverse generations and milieus here: small children in rain pants, but also their grandparents.”
The police advertised that the evacuation of Lützerath should be transparent and peaceful. “There’s practically nothing left of it,” says Neubauer. The bags of supporters arriving from Hamburg were checked for hours. The “huge police presence” is frightening and raises “a lot of questions”. The legal basis on which the resistance takes place is an international treaty that came about democratically, namely the Paris climate agreement.
Concert rescheduled due to lavage
A concert by the Cologne band AnnenMayKantereit planned for Sunday afternoon has meanwhile been moved to another area in consultation with the organizer because the edge of the opencast mine had been washed away with water, a police spokeswoman said. As a result, there is an acute danger to life in the area above, the police warned.
The gate valve on a closed pipe was opened during the night, causing thousands of liters of water to flow into the opencast mine and undermine the embankment, said a spokesman for the Aachen police.
“Lützerath has to stay. That’s why we make music there on Sunday,” the group’s singer, Henning May, had previously expressed his solidarity with the activists on Instagram.
“Lignite is not needed”
The land and houses of the place, which is characterized by agriculture, have long belonged to RWE. In October 2022, the green-led German economics ministries in the federal government and North Rhine-Westphalia agreed with the energy company to phase out coal in the Rhineland before 2030. Five villages in the vicinity of the mine that were previously threatened with demolition are to be preserved. The government of North Rhine-Westphalia points out that in return the phase-out of coal has been brought forward by eight years to 2030.
Climate activist Neubauer accused the Greens of not actually needing the coal under Lützerath. According to Neubauer on Twitter, the Greens were taken in by false numbers from the “notoriously unbelievable coal company” RWE. For example, expert reports by the CoalExit Research Group and the German Institute for Economic Research recently came to the conclusion that energy supply during the crisis would also be possible without the coal under Lützerath.
Online call for participation in resistance
Numerous activists traveled to Lützerath again on Saturday. Shuttle buses brought them to the rough terrain from nearby train stations. Several new tents were set up in a camp in a field in the neighboring district of Keyenberg.
In the social networks, initiatives called with the hashtag “#LuetzerathUnraeumbar” to participate in the resistance against the eviction. Further barricades were erected on the streets of Lützerath, among other things activists concreted gas bottles into the lanes to make them impassable.
Greenpeace climate expert Karsten Smid told the dpa that in Lützerath it would be decided whether the German traffic light government was serious about climate protection. “Burning the coal under Lützerath means breaking with the Paris climate goals. We no longer need the coal below the village and simply cannot afford to continue burning this most climate-damaging of all energy sources.” RWE’s interest in profit should not take precedence over the common good, protecting the planet and preserving the basis of life.