The last days of Lützerath: The village that has to make way for coal

Sthey will come. Everyone who wants to defend the occupied village of Lützerath from the coal excavators of the energy company RWE knows that. It is not clear when the police will arrive to clear the area. And because that’s the case, things are a bit strange here – relaxed but busy: A man in a pink balaclava carries a crate of beer and spirits from the car into a house. A street further on, two masked men are heating the asphalt of the former highway 277 with a gas burner and hammering holes in the ground with a pickaxe.

There will be blockades here on day X when the clearing of the place that RWE wants to excavate for lignite begins. Mara grins a bit embarrassed when asked about the holes in the ground: “We don’t want to make it too easy for them to get in here,” says the activist. Last autumn she came to Lützerath. Since then she has lived in this “place of resistance”, which has become the new big symbol of the climate movement. Twenty-five-year-old Mara doesn’t want to say where she originally comes from. The only thing that really matters is how long she’s been here. Something stops with Lützerath. And something starts.

Previously, Mara completed her bachelor’s degree in geography. Many problems were discussed at the university: “But I noticed that it didn’t lead to anything. It all felt very pointless.” The little town of Lützerath, an hour west of Cologne between farmland and the forty-eight square kilometer opencast mine that looks as if a meteorite had struck, was the end of the search for meaning. Not just for her.

Doubts about the RWE deal

Those who came here like Mara now call the hamlet, abandoned by its original inhabitants, home. Tree houses adorn the thick trunks of the few trees that stand here. The activists have built small villages with wooden huts around the center, in which a twenty-meter-high wooden tower reaches into the sky. Districts have emerged. They bear the names Auenland, Wäldchen or Hüttendorf. There is a kitchen for everyone, community tents, Corona room, studio and concert stage. But how long?

Eckardt Heukamp, ​​the last farmer, recently had to vacate. Heukamp is the origin of everything in Lützerath. He made the protest possible because he was the only one who didn’t want to sell. There is graffiti with his name on the walls. “Thank you Eckardt” is written there. He went to court again and again. Again and again he lost against RWE. Legally, the situation is clear: the energy company has a claim to the area, which has been confirmed by several authorities. Nevertheless, it was surprising for everyone how quickly the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs led by Robert Habeck (Greens) and that of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia by Mona Neubaur (Greens) announced a deal with RWE, of which hardly anything had previously leaked out.