Old Trees and a Railroad Station in Stuttgart

Victor Grossman, Berlin Bulletin:  No. 14, 2010

A retired engineer of 66 loses an eye, forced from its
socket by water cannon at short range. High school kids
in an approved protest demonstration get beaten and
excruciatingly blinded by pepper gas; over 400 people
are injured in a major police attack, which failed
completely in its aim: to end the protests. It happened
on the now historical date of September 30th. A whole
city was in a state of near shock and anger. And all
that because of a railroad station and some ancient
trees?

It sounds implausible in the usually calm, relatively
well-off city of Stuttgart, the home of
Mercedes-Daimler and Porsche. The capital of the
southwest German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, which has
been ruled since 1953 by Angela Merkel's conservative
Christian Democrats, together currently with the even
more right-wing Free Democrats.  What in the world
moves thousands, ten thousands, sometimes a hundred
thousand usually rather unpolitical people to shout,
sing, pray, climb trees and jam the main square with
their banners, posters, whistles and drums?

The excitement began in August, when people became
aware that their big central station was to be leveled
in order to build a modern underground station for high
speed trains. Few people had anything against modern or
high speed, but they liked the almost one hundred year
old landmark in the middle of town with its big tower.
They loved the open space around it, a park near the
former royal palace with 282 tall, two-hundred-year-old
chestnut trees. And not many Stuttgart people were
eager to have one more business district erected there,
even though some apartments would be thrown in. Even
fewer liked the idea when they heard that the price of
the dubious "Stuttgart 21" project, instead of the
originally announced 3 billion Euros or the revised 5
or 7 billion, would most likely total 18 or 19 billion.
Lots of schools and other good public buildings could
be built or repaired with money like that, while Angela
Merkel and her ministers were whining incessantly that
"we must all tighten our belts," which means cutting
benefits for those who need them most.

The mayor, a CDU man, the governor of the state, also a
CDU man, and Angela Merkel in Berlin, a CDU woman, all
pointed out that the project, called Stuttgart 21, had
been approved by the law-makers years ago and could not
be dropped now, when work had already begun. Yet
somehow this legally correct argument just didn't get
across, and thousands started wearing buttons with a
line drawn through the Stuttgart 21 logo, and they
started gathering in front of the station, more and
more of them, louder and louder. For a while they
demonstrated Monday evenings, like the famous
demonstrators in East German Leipzig 21 years earlier.
Then they gathered on weekends too, or any other day,
sometimes in immense crowds for a city of 600,000
inhabitants.

The mayor sent more and more police, wrecking crews
tore down one wing of the station, which only made
people madder. Then came that terrible attack on
September 30th, and the pictures of the elderly
engineer with both eyes smashed and bloody and of
youngsters moaning with burning pepper-sprayed eyes
shook the entire nation. The videos of giant old trees
being felled further enraged the nature-lovers, who got
an injunction against further felling when it was found
that a rare, endangered beetle species lives almost
only in those trees.

Motivating many people, certainly, was an increasing
awareness that a small number of wealthy, powerful
companies with close political connections would rake
in billions and also the feeling that, despite all
parliamentary processes, they had been kept almost
entirely in the dark. The official line in Germany has
been that voters should elect parties and politicians
to represent them and then leave it to them to govern,
otherwise keeping their mouths shut. Often that is just
what happens. But in recent months they have seen the
government chopping away at their livelihoods in so
many ways while the big fish profit, largely untaxed
and untroubled. Resentment has been growing, and there
seem to be many, perhaps after watching demonstrators
in France, Greece and elsewhere, who want to make their
voices heard.  Merkel said they should wait for
election day in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg on March
27th. But by then the trees and the station would be
gone.

Politics are indeed involved. The LEFT, still
unrepresented in the parliament there and few in
number, has largely gone unmentioned, even when LEFT
leader Gregor Gysi called a special session of the
Bundestag in Berlin to take action against the police
brutality. The Social Democrats, who had long approved
the Stuttgart 21 project, finally climbed onto the
bandwagon, but their wishy-washy opposition wins them
few friends. It has been the Greens who have pushed
their way into the limelight and who will probably
prosper most, not only in the southwest but everywhere.
As for the two governing parties in the state, both
Christian Democrats and Free Democrats stand to lose
immensely, unless they can somehow alter the situation
before next March. For weeks and weeks they remained
absolutely stubborn, but finally had to agree to a
mediation attempt by a retired politician, one of the
very rare progressive Christian Democrats. A possible
solution would be a referendum, common in neighboring
Switzerland but almost unknown here. Yet thus far this
has been rejected. The end remains uncertain, while the
demonstrations continue, rain or shine.

October 18 2010

_____________________________________________

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