A picture of destruction is presented over six floors, each with four apartments. The doors are kicked in and taken off their hinges, the sinks, toilet bowls and tubs are smashed, and in some cases the water flows unhindered into the apartments and is centimeters high above the floor. The living rooms, some of which are fully furnished, are also partly devastated. In the basement, water drips into the power distribution box.
Daniel Diekmann, one of the last old tenants in the building Prefabricated building on Habersaathstrasse in Mitte, walks in disbelief through the stairwell of number 48, where only his apartment, out of 24 in total, remained intact. A similar picture can also be seen in the entrance next to it, at house number 44. Here, a resident stands scared in his apartment door. In English he says: “I was in the apartment, communicating through the door, but they still broke in.” Resignedly, he adds: “I can’t go anywhere else.”
The residents’ reports make it clear what happened this Thursday in the house that has been embattled for years. Around midday, the owner Andreas Pichotta arrived with eight to ten masked men who then plowed violently through the house. Alarmed police officers arrived and then drove away without having accomplished anything, says Diekmann. He was unable to file a report and was instead accused of illegally calling the emergency number.
Pichotta, who bought the house in 2017, would like to build a more profitable new building on the site of the structurally intact house. In order to demolish the former Charité nursing home, he has to get rid of the last old tenants, who have so far successfully resisted the move. Pichotta tries bullying and ever new – unsuccessful – legal proceedings. Since homeless people occupied already empty apartments in 2021, he has also been trying to drive them out, sometimes using violent methods. The heating in the house has been turned off for 79 days.
It should become uninhabitable for everyone
The legal situation is complicated. Some of the apartments destroyed on Thursday are empty, others have successful eviction notices, some of which are stuck to the broken doors. Some evictions had already taken place in Octobern, other proceedings against the approximately 50 remaining occupiers are still pending.
But they, as well as at least one old tenant, are also said to have been affected by the destruction, as are apartments that are rented out by a hotel that is also located in the building, for example to Ukrainian construction workers. For some residents who stand together in front of the house in the afternoon, it is clear: “criminal activities” are being carried out here.
The situation is probably less clear for district politics. And Pichotta also obviously sees himself in the right. This is supported by the fact that the owner is said to have written a corresponding announcement email to Mitte’s district mayor Stefanie Remlinger (Greens) at midday before the operation with his demolition crew. This is what she reported to Diekmann.
While the stunned residents stand in the cold, the newcomer Pichotta, Mitte’s construction councilor Ephraim Gothe (SPD) and the district’s member of the Bundestag, Hanna Steinmüller (Greens), sit together in the rooms of the Habersaath Hotel. Gothe only comes out briefly once and announces that he will inform the district council about the events. To reassure him, he says: Nothing more will happen that day. Only the personal details of two unknown occupiers still need to be recorded.
Meanwhile, Diekmann, the tireless fighter against the profit motive from the living space on Habersaathstrasse, is worried that Pichotta has come closer to his goal with the campaign. His fear in view of the damaged power supply: the district’s building inspectorate could prohibit further living in the house due to acute dangers.