Rote Flora
Rote Flora | |
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self-managed social centre | |
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rote-flora |
The Rote Flora is a former theatre in the
History of the building
The Flora theatre was constructed on Schulterblatt in 1835.[1] It was used for concerts, operettas, revues, and boxing matches. It became a variety theatre until it shut down after World War II. It was used as a cinema and then became a bargain store called 1000 Töpfe.[2]
In the late 1980s, local people were alarmed by the plans of Friedrich Kurz to gentrify the theatre by making it a venue for performances of The Phantom of the Opera, fearing it would attract tourists and change the area; they proposed to turn it into a community centre instead.[3] The alternative plans were ignored by the city and the rear of the building was demolished in April 1988. Sabotage attacks began on the construction site and bowing to the local pressure, the community was given a temporary lease to use the building. When the lease expired on 1 November 1989, the occupiers stayed and the building was squatted.[1] It was a week before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the new inhabitants said it was a "free space for realizing an autonomous life."[2] It has remained squatted ever since.[1]
Social centre
At the beginning the occupiers were very much focused on local struggles and as time went by, the Rote Flora has developed into a
The collective said in 2001 "We are the 'UFO in the neighbourhood.' The black hole in public space. The City won't get rid of us because we are a part of what life is."
During the 2017 G20 Hamburg summit, the Rote Flora was a major hotspot and following riots in the Schanzeviertel rightwing commentators demanded that the Rote Flora be closed down.[10][11] The Rote Flora distanced itself from the rioters, with a spokesperson saying that "that a form of militancy was brought onto the streets which was intoxicated with itself, and we find that both politically and in terms of content wrong" ("dass hier eine Form von Militanz auf die Straße getragen wurde, die sich selbst berauscht hat und das finden wir politisch und inhaltlich falsch").[1] A former police officer who studies left-wing politics wrote that activists spend a lot of time maintaining and organising the Rote Flora, time which then takes them away from other political projects.[12]
As well as being a centre of left-wing activism, the Rote Flora has become a destination for alternative tourism, since the Schanzeviertel is gentrifying.[13] Rules posted at the door of the centre in 2018 state: "We will not tolerate any kind of sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, lookism or any kind of boundary-crossing behaviour here."[11] The Rote Flora collective gave the building the address of Achidi-John Platz 1 to commemorate a man, Achidi John, who died in 2001 after being forced by police officers to swallow an emetic.[2][14]
See also
References
- ^ S2CID 165309877. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
- ^ a b c "The Rote Flora: the iconic Hamburg squat right-wingers call a danger to the nation". The Local. 11 July 2007. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
- ^ a b Müllenberg, Wolf-Hendrik (19 November 2019). "Rote Flora: Aktivisten besetzen Hamburger Varietétheater". NDR (in German). Retrieved 22 January 2022.
- ^ a b c Birke, Peter (2014). "Autonome Sehenswürdigkeit. Die Rote Flora und die Hamburger Stadtentwicklung seit den späten 1980er Jahren [Autonomous Vision: The Rote Flora and Hamburg's urban development since the 1980s]". Sozial Geschichte Online. 13.
- .
- ^ ISBN 978-3643901149.
- ^ "English". Flora Bleibt. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
- ^ a b "Hamburg: Rote Flora bleibt Kulturzentrum [Rote Flora remains a cultural centre]". Der Spiegel (in German). 18 January 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
- ^ a b Twickel, Christoph; Braden, Benjamin; Jäschke, Martin (28 August 2014). "Rote Flora: 25 Jahre besetztes Kulturzentrum in Hamburg". Der Spiegel (in German). Retrieved 22 January 2022.
- ^ Wüllenweber, Walter (14 July 2017). "Macht kaputt, was uns kaputt macht! - Warum die Rote Flora weg muss". Stern (in German). Retrieved 22 January 2022.
- ^ a b Khandekar, Omkar (11 October 2018). "To the Barricades". Caravan Magazine. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
- ISBN 978-3-906129-91-4.)
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ISBN 9780367555399.)
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ Volkmann-Schluck, Philip (30 April 2011). "Von Flora-Kreisläufen und Monarchie-Spektakeln". Abendblatt (in German). Retrieved 2 February 2022.