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Is Berlin planning to build flats on the famous Tempelhofer Feld?

The CDU-led government in Berlin is putting the controversial issue of building flats on Tempelhof airfield back on the agenda. Could it lead to another referendum?

Published: 28 November 2023 16:55 CET
A cyclist in Berlin's Tempelhof field
A cyclist in Berlin's Tempelhof field. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Monika Skolimowska

What’s happening?

The centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Berlin is exploring new options for using ‘Tempelhofer Feld’ as a site for new housing. Specifically, it wants to hold a new referendum on designating certain parts of the former 360-hectare airfield-turned-green space for housing construction. 

German public broadcaster RBB was the first to report on the results of a closed-door meeting held by the Berlin CDU parliamentary group in Warsaw over the weekend. Among other topics, the Christian Democrat deputies passed a paper confirming their intention to put the issue of building on Tempelhof to a public vote.

In doing so, the ruling CDU-led coalition, with the Social Democrats (SPD) as the junior partner, is reviving an issue that many thought was done and dusted.

In 2014, a citizens’ initiative succeeded in thwarting the Senate’s plans to designate certain sections of the field for construction projects. 64 percent of voters rejected the proposal, ensuring that the entire field would be preserved. This commitment is now beginning to crumble.

READ ALSO: Berlin voters reject Tempelhof development

Why is the CDU reviving the issue?

After winning the Berlin state elections in February this year, the new CDU mayor, Kai Wegner, announced his intention to reopen the Tempelhof issue.

Dirk Stettner, head of the Berlin CDU parliamentary group, told RBB, that this is because the housing situation in Berlin is drastically different now compared to 2014.

“There is an unprecedented demand,” he added, referring to the severe housing crisis the city is currently facing. In light of this, new options for creating housing have to be considered, he said.

Kai Wegner (CDU) arrives at the Rotes Rathaus

Berlin mayor Kai Wegner (CDU). Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa Pool | Christoph Soeder

This second attempt to develop the parkland also became part of the coalition agreement that Wegner’s Christian Democrats signed with ex-mayor Franziska Giffey’s Social Democrats. But while the coalition agreement spoke only of a “re-evaluation” of the possibility by the population, the CDU is now pushing forward with a more concrete proposal. 

What remains unclear is whether a political party can bypass the collection of signatures usually required to initiate a referendum. If the CDU’s approach is deemed inadmissible, Stettner advocates finding other ways for citizens to participate in the issue.

Similarly, Wegner’s government hasn’t presented any clear plans for the extent to which they want to determine the limits of space for housing projects. The two coalition partners have frequently floated the term “behutsame Randbebauung”, which can be translated as a “careful development at the edges” of Tempelhofer Feld. 

CDU politician Christian Gräff holds that the outskirts of the airfield are already covered in concrete, such that a construction plan that would leave much of the green space intact would be possible. 

“We are talking about a careful development.” SPD minister for urban planning, Christian Gaebler, told RBB24 Abendschau.

“It will have to be done in such a way that the current functions of the field for providing leisure and regulating the city climate remain intact.”

What measures have already been taken?

In 2014, the successful campaign against further construction at Tempelhof Feld was enshrined in state law.

But two years later, the law was amended for the first time to allow the construction of a temporary refugee shelter on the northern edge of the site. According to the current legislation, the container settlement can only remain in place until 2025. 

In order to circumvent this restriction, the Berlin government decided last week to further amend the law. In addition to extending the lease for accommodating refugees until 2028, the new law will allow for the expansion of the shelter.

Critics fear that the amendment could set a precedent for further real estate development at Tempelhofer Feld.

However Stettner denies these allegations. “Developing the edges of Tempelhof is another topic that has nothing to do with the amended law,” he told RBB.

So what happens next? That remains unclear. But it’s fair to say that many Berliners will be watching this story closely. 

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CLIMATE CRISIS

INTERVIEW: ‘Failed climate policies are fuelling far-right politics in Germany’

Alt-right political parties tend to oppose environmental protections, but is there a connection between their political success and climate policy failures? Author and thought-leader Sandrine Dixson-Declève explains why Germany may be having a ‘1930s moment’, and why the next elections are gravely important.

Published: 17 May 2024 15:24 CEST
INTERVIEW: 'Failed climate policies are fuelling far-right politics in Germany'

It’s understood that far-right and populist political parties tend to either downplay the realities of climate change, or block progressive policies that would try to mitigate its impacts. But the link between failed climate policies and the recent rise of populist parties is rarely addressed.

Speaking as a panellist at the Green Tech Festival in Berlin on Thursday, climate policy thought-leader Sandrine Dixson-Declève voiced concern that poor climate and economic policies are fuelling the popularity of far-right politics in Germany and across Europe. 

Co-president of the Club of Rome, Dixson-Declève works to promote policies that she believes would help secure a sustainable future for humanity. Such policies are laid out in the book Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity, that she co-authored.

The Local spoke with Sandrine Dixson-Declève about Germany’s climate policy failures, and why she thinks the upcoming European elections are of the utmost importance.

The shortcomings of Germany’s ‘Energiewende’ had serious political consequences

Having been a contributor and advisor to Germany’s Energiewende (energy transition), Dixson-Declève has followed German politics and environmental policy for years.

“I believe that one of the biggest mistakes was that we politicised energy policy in Germany from the outset,” she told The Local, adding, “Merkel actually accepted the big green push to pull out of nuclear, which actually created a big mess.”

Germany’s anti-nuclear energy movement dates back to the 19070s, and led to the foundation of the Green party. Under Merkel’s leadership, a plan was adopted to phase out nuclear power with the last three nuclear power plants taken offline in 2023.

But losing nuclear power as an energy source came with some serious consequences.

“The first big mess was the continued burning of coal,” Dixson-Declève explained. “The second big mess was Nord Stream 2, and that led to the invasion of Ukraine…because it gave Putin power.”

Still, she wouldn’t suggest that Germany try to revive its nuclear power now: “I believe that Germany needs to really think through the next steps.”

READ ALSO: ‘Nuclear power is a dead horse in Germany’: Scholz rejects reopening plants 

Protestors run past riot police

A wave of protestors break through police lines at Lützerath. Open pit coal mining in west Germany destroyed most of the Hambach Forest, as well as dozens of villages such as Lützerath. At both sites massive citizen protests were met with brutal police evictions. Photo by Paul Krantz.

Energy efficiency is the missing piece to Germany’s climate plans

How to build up renewable energy infrastructure is at the centre of most discourse around curbing fossil fuel use, but using the energy we have more efficiently arguably deserves more immediate attention.

“The other missing link, which no one talks about, is energy efficiency,” Dixson-Declève said. “Actually the best energy is the energy you don’t use. That is unsexy, and that is why energy efficiency hasn’t been taken up the way it should have been since 2010.”

While working on climate and energy plans in 2010, she says she came across a study that said Europe could wean itself off of Russian gas just by putting energy efficiency requirements in place for buildings.

In 2022 the European Commission finally began to take this idea seriously when Germany and Europe suddenly needed to replace Russian gas imports, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Another massive energy saver that has been politicised for all the wrong reasons in Germany is heat pumps.

According to Eurostat data, about half of all energy consumed in the EU is used for heating and cooling, and most of that energy comes from fossil fuels. Heat pumps are significantly more efficient than boilers and allow for greater use of renewable energy sources.

But when Economy Minister Robert Habeck led an effort to promote heat pumps by banning new fossil-powered heating systems, conservative and far-right parties jumped on the issue as if it were an attack on personal freedoms. 

“As environmentalists, we need to get better at translating the environmental narrative into something that resonates with people,” said Dixson-Declève. 

READ ALSO: Reader question – How do I install a heat pump in my German property?

A unified coalition government that is serious about climate protections might have better communicated to people that heat pumps would ultimately save them money: “They should have been enabled in a way that truly assisted people in getting the heat that they needed in an affordable way at the right time.”

‘I am very scared we are in a 1930s moment’

Whereas the coalition government has largely failed to communicate to voters how environmental policies will improve their lives and save them money, conservative and far-right parties have done extremely well at hijacking the narrative. 

The European People’s Party (EPP – the EU’s largest conservative party), for example, is particularly adept at using citizens’ economic concerns to block environmental policies.

Having analysed the EPP’s manifestos, Dixson-Declève notes that they acknowledge the need to mitigate climate change, but say that protections cannot cost. 

“I think the EPP has done a very good job both of putting in fear of the greens, [as if] they’re only going to think about green climate policies and not about social policies [whereas] we’re here to think about you.”

Sandrine Dixson-Declève with Earth for All

Sandrine Dixson-Declève holds up a copy of the book ‘Earth for All’ alongside two of the book’s co-authors. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Wolfgang Kumm

Germany’s far-right parties tend to use similar messaging to try and convince voters that they will better improve the lives of citizens than the current coalition parties have. 

READ ALSO: Why are the far-right AfD doing so well in German polls?

Nearly 100 years ago, the National Socialist (Nazi) party succeeded in drumming up major support along similar lines.

Speaking as a panellist at Berlin’s Green Tech Festival, when asked how she thought European politicians were doing on climate issues, Dixson-Declève described them as deer in the headlights, adding, “I am very scared we are in a 1930s moment”.

“I think that in the 1930s we didn’t see Hitler coming, we didn’t read the tea leaves,” she told The Local, adding that in the present moment, “people are suffering. When people suffer, they look to anything, any message that’s going to make them feel like that next leader is going to help them.” 

She also suggests that we can’t count on the youth vote to save us, citing Argentina and Portugal as two places where young voters have actually pushed politics to the right recently.

READ ALSO: A fight for the youth vote: Are German politicians social media savvy enough?

“This is a tipping moment politically, and if we’re not careful, it could explode in our faces,” said Dixson-Declève. “We need to get as many people to vote this year [as possible]. It’s an absolutely fundamental vote, alongside the United States, in order to make sure that we don’t slide to the right across Europe.”

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