The Fight for Expropriation and Social Housing in Berlin
The Campaign to socialize housing in Berlin
Deutsche Wohnen und Co Enteignen
On Sunday, October 26th, over 56% of Berliners voted on a Volksentschied, or ballot initiative, that authorized two things. First, that any landlord who owned more than 3000 apartments should have those apartments over the 3000 threshold expropriated. And second, that the expropriated apartments should be put into cooperative use-Vergesesellschaften-also known as socialization The initiative went directly after the main target, and called itself Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen (DWE)-“Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen and Co”, Deutsche Wohnen & Co being one of the major mass apartment holders. While the 3000 threshold seems high, the initiative would end up expropriating 240,000 apartments - the main 5-6 companies are massive! In other words, the goal of the campaign was to significantly reduce the power of profit-seeking companies from the housing market, while socializing as much housing as possible.
The initiative was unfortunately merely advisory in nature, but still sent a clarion call in a city/state of 3.6 million people that expropriation and social housing are critical policies that the government must adopt, and that this win at the ballot box gives a huge boost to the ultimate possibility of victory for the campaign.
The effort was remarkable in a number of ways. First, it was an entirely volunteer effort. Second, as a volunteer effort it gathered over 70,000 signatures in the first round, and then over 350,000 in the second round. The first round was a showing of interest and then the second round was necessary to qualify the initiative. Third, over 1500 people volunteered, and spanned the gamut age-wise. Finally, it was a remarkable attempt to research the German Constitution, and find a legal way that eminent domain or expropriation could be used in the housing market.
The structure of the campaign was very horizontal. You could join through a working group, like communications, social media, tenant organizing/support, culture, or thinking through the cooperative ownership piece. For English speakers, there was a special working group called Right to the City-not formally related to the Right to the City in the US, but from similar David Harvey underpinnings, that organized English speakers to engage in campaign support, including a lot of social media, and a radical cheerleading group (yes, literally cheerleading). The other great piece from Right To the City was during the signature gathering there was an opportunity to get the stories, both as renters and immigrants, of those in Berlin who supported the initiative but were unable to vote.
In addition to the citywide planning groups, there were 20 neighborhood organizing teams (Kiezteams) who made local organizing and action plans. For example, a team from one neighborhood organized 150 people to have an action on a boat on the main river through Berlin. Representatives from each working group and a couple representatives from the Kiezteams made up the overall coordinating body of the campaign. There seemed to be relatively few barriers to entry. Many participants talked about how they were welcomed into working groups, and others mentioned that the overall coordinating team had room for new folks. And of course, who wouldn’t want to join a neighborhood team or working group and get added to the Telegram group (an app similar to Whatsapp or Signal that we use for organizing) Apparently, there were so many Telegram groups that one of the organizing Bingo questions at the victory party was to find someone in more than 20 Telegram groups-a task which seemed to be pretty easy.
Another tool that encouraged mass participation was the DWE (initials for the campaign) app. During the campaign, you could log into the app, and see who was organizing what activities. With one push of a button you could register to doorknock, do street canvassing, hand out newspapers (600,000 flyers and 300,000 newspapers were printed), or even, my most fun activity, talk to people sitting out at the bars in one of the main entertainment districts. It’s Germany, so we went to the corner store, grabbed a bottle of beer and then handed out flyers and talked with folks sitting outside. You could also communicate through the app and send a message if you were lost, or running late. In addition to getting flyers to hand out, everyone canvased in pretty snazzy vests, which are common, as other signature gathering efforts during the Climate Strike also had their vests for example.
There has been tenant organizing in Berlin for a number of years, especially in immigrant neighborhoods. Tenant organizing, and the pressure of this campaign led to the Berlin senate passing a rent cap in an attempt to minimize support for this bolder campaign, politicians keep saying there are other ways to solve the crisis. Regardless, the rent cap was recently found unconstitutional by the German Constitutional Court.
The place I doorknocked had first been knocked five years ago, and many of the same folks who had been organizing with those tenants back then were still at it five years later. Many of the tenant formations had been set back a bit by the pandemic, but there are attempts to rebuild the tenant groups. Organizers report that the campaign really brought the ideas of doorknocking and community organizing further to the fore, with all sorts of workshops and opportunities to learn together about community organizing.
The complex where i helped doorknock was an interesting mix of buildings, some were publicly owned still, with rents relatively low, about 600-700 Euros. Others had been sold off by the City/State of Berlin-often first to Private Equity, then later to huge companies like Deutsche Wohnen and Co, and rents were close to 1000 or 1100 Euros, with poor maintenance. Interestingly enough, the Berlin government announced a week before the election that they were spending $1 billion Euros on buying back a set of apartments, showing that pressure works.
Because it was an all-volunteer effort, and lots of donations came in, there was all sorts of money for swag. There was the previously mentioned literature, but also stickers, flags, posters, and even lighters, (lots more smokers in Europe)! And, there was a giant campaign bus that hosted concerts and went to the soccer stadiums to spread the word. Most working groups reported that if they needed expenses met, it was pretty easy to get them met.
Culturally, this was a campaign of young and hip folks, with super edgy Tiktok and Instagram presence. Tenant organizers reported wishing that those who had been part of tenants unions were volunteering, but that was rarely the case, despite the history of tenant organizing. Nonetheless, over 85% of Berliners rent, so everyone was organizing in their self-interest. Unfortunately, close to a quarter of Berliners did not have German citizenship, so were unable to vote.
The cultural pieces of the campaign were remarkable. The doorknocking had great prep and debriefs-some folks mentioned they had Zoomed with Working Families Party folks around doorknocking, and then folks went for dinner and drinks afterwards. Many folks were surprised that people opened their doors and had conversations, as doorknocking is pretty unusual in Germany. Seemed from the debrief that more than half of folks who opened their door engaged in conversation. The election night party featured a professional style set that interspersed the larger German election results with a talk-show style where every working group was featured. There were slides as the backdrop that showed the campaign structure and timeline, and you could hang out inside (masked) or outside and hear all the campaign stories. There was a food truck and beer, and the radical cheerleaders did numbers in-between the breaks.
The main campaign messaging was fairly moderate. It talked a lot about affordability, and keeping money circulating locally, rather than on the anti-capitalist parts of the initiative. Organizers named two reasons for that. First, they wanted to be as inclusive as possible across the political spectrum, and second, given that many Berliners still remember socialism in East Berlin, and not always fondly. That being said, many folks in direct conversations would polarize against the “Capitalists.”
On that note, the one-on-one conversations were fascinating, and fully ran the gamut ideologically and practically. Among those who were opposed,some folks had detailed questions about the amount of compensation that would be paid to those who had property expropriated. An older retiree in a lower-income housing complex said she just did not agree in principle with the notion of messing with private property. Leadership of the existing socialized housing in Berlin (Genossenschaften), which was worker housing created decades ago, told residents their apartments would be expropriated. The general anti-initiative message was along the lines of, “this is not the right solution, and we need more production or other solutions for the problem of out of control rents; of course rent control has been thrown out on constitutional grounds so..
On the pro side, people on the doors were overwhelmingly in favor of the initiative. We encountered a few people who said they certainly did not believe in any political parties, but when we explained this was an independent people’s initiative, they were very interested. So many people in complexes owned by Deutsche Wohnen & Co had complaints of service requests not being answered, rents going through the roof, and it being impossible to contact them. And like all doorknocking, people will often surprise you, especially with the right redirect question. A very old couple who spoke with a very strong Berliner accent started talking about how while one of them was in the hospital recently, and they were taken care of only by immigrants, there were no Germans there. When my doorknocking partner asked how the care was and how good it was that Germany had immigrants to do this, he talked about how it was quite good and he felt well cared for. A cab driver who was losing all sorts of business to rideshare talked about how the whole system needed to be torn down and was voting yes. I think in the one building we doorknocked we heard at least 7 different languages, and at least one son or daughter explained the initiative to their parent or grandparent, less fluent in German. On the whole folks were fired up, and wanted to understand, if they were voting in person, how they could make sure to vote for the referendum, as there were numerous elections-federal, state and local, all with different ballots.
Most campaign volunteers thought the results would be tight, and were surprised at the margin of victory. There was a pretty limited no campaign, Deutsche Wohnen &Co said very little publicly, but other companies did urge residents to vote no. Only the Left Party was clearly in favor of the initiative and there was lots of electioneering crossover between them and the DWE campaign. The Green Party was mixed, and the other parties were clearly lined up against it. From the exit polling, the second largest group of supporters for the initiative, other than Left Party voters, were those who voted for the Far-Right Party. The initiative did well in the outer rings of Berlin, which was surprising, since outreach to those parts of the city didn’t happen until late in the campaign. Despite the popularity of the initiative, the Left Party lost over 7 percent of its popularity from 2017 to 2021.
There was a plenary to discuss next steps held a couple days after the election. There are a few pieces of work moving forward. First, folks who have relationships with local parties are going to make a public plan to pressure them to include the initiative in the Party demands as government is formed. The “Red-Red-Green” governance of Berlin is likely to continue-Social Democrats, Left Party and Green Party. Second, there is now an era of ongoing public action. Third, there are discussions about increasing tenant organizing, as well as creating a working group to write the actual legislation and decide how the socialization happens, rather than letting the government determine that.
The Berlin expropriation campaign builds on decades of squatting, tenant organizing and rent control initiatives. Berlin is still one of the more affordable cities of its size and status, and the campaign built on this history. I think there are lots of lessons to be drawn from this fight. Here are my top 3: First, we need more and bigger ideas and we need to figure out how to get these ideas in front of large numbers of people, including using our local referenda processes more. Second, we often think we cannot discuss policies that sound like socialism with the broader public. But even in a city where hundreds of thousands of people have had historical problems with socialism, there can be majority support for these ideas. Third, free-wheeling campaigns can be quite successful. If there are roles for participants where they have a voice and say, really interesting creative things can happen, and a ton of work gets done. Perhaps we overmanage our campaigns too much.
The road to expropriation and scaled social housing in Berlin is still long, but after the September 26th win, the path forward is much clearer than ever before.
