A tiny village has become a symbol of the cost of Germany’s continued dependence on fossil fuels. The German government pledged to quit coal by 2030, but officials say the coal beneath the village is critical amid the scramble to replace cheap Russian gas.
, officials say the coal underneath the village is essential. The last farmer is gone, after his efforts to fight eviction failed, and the land and the houses now belong to the coal giant RWE.
Other demonstrators perched in treetops sang and chanted as police closed in. “We need to build a better future and we need to start right now,” sang one with a guitar up a tree.“We are pacifists,” said Yuno, an activist in her mid-20s, who like others here would not give more identifying details for fear of legal repercussions. She and her comrades were holed up in an 18th-century farmhouse, where large dumpsters and overturned camper vans had been installed as barricades.
The occupied buildings in the hamlet present the “major challenge,” Willi Sauer, head of operations for Aachen police, said ahead of the operation. “We don’t know what to expect.” Possible booby traps and activists climbing the roofs are all “special challenges.” Police said they would continue operations overnight, although at a limited scale.The impact of Europe’s quick-fix fallback on fossil fuels as it rushes to fill the energy gap is starkly visible from Lützerath.
The activist camp has been on the site for about two years, since Erkhard Heukamp, the farmer who was forced out after losing his court battle against RWE, allowed them to camp out on his fields.Heukamp is now gone, as are all of the original habitants of the cluster of homes in the settlement that dates back to the 12th century.
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