‘This is about more than water’

• Chiem Balduk

  Germany correspondent

Tufts of young people with backpacks and tents enter the lawn. A beer is opened and music is played at an improvised campsite. It has everything like a festival. But the main stage is not Billie Eilish or Joost Klein, but opponents of Tesla.

Here in Grünheide, in the woods east of Berlin, protests against the car manufacturer have been going on for months. Tesla wants to expand the factory, which will require 100 hectares of forest. The concerns are mainly focused on the consequences for groundwater: the factory is located in the middle of the drinking water protection area. The factory uses a lot of water, while households are put on water rationing, villagers complain.

“This is more than a local problem,” says Katerina Drzewo of the action group ‘Tesla turn off the tap’ combatively. “Water is becoming less obvious due to climate change, and the question will then arise more often: whose water is it? From ordinary citizens or from a few super-rich people?”

Since the end of February, dozens of climate activists have been living in tree houses near the Tesla factory. As of today, the protest has been expanded to include a new camp and a weekend full of protests. The aim is to shut down or “at least disrupt” the factory. The organization expects 1,200 sleepers in the protest camp.

In any case, Tesla’s ‘Gigafactory’ will be shut down in the coming days. According to the car manufacturer, this happens because of Ascension Day and Friday has been added as a day off. That decision would have already been made before the protest was announced. The factory was also shut down in March, at the time due to a sabotage action by a left-wing extremist action group.

It may seem like a contradiction: climate activists protesting against an electric car manufacturer, but the protesters are clearly not convinced of Tesla’s sustainability promises. “The ‘green transition’ should not be at the expense of the land, nature and workers,” says Maria Nicolellis, referring to reports of poor working conditions at the factory. She calls it “the hypocrisy of green energy”.

“We should be able to travel from A to B, that makes sense,” says campaigner Ole Becker. “But only luxury SUVs are built here. That is not good for the earth.”

Germany welcomed the Tesla factory with open arms in 2017. In the previous years, several EU countries, including the Netherlands, competed for the American car manufacturer’s favor. With 12,500 jobs and a production capacity of a thousand cars per day, Tesla provides one boost of the local economy.

Elon Musk’s company ultimately chose Germany, which was able to give its image as a car country a new shine with the arrival of the modern car manufacturer. At the opening of the factory, Economy Minister Habeck (The Greens) proudly spoke of a “signal that Germany will also become the leading market for electric cars”. He called the fact that Tesla started construction before arranging the permits as “a different culture, but one that works”.

“I love Berlin,” Musk said at the time. But it did not come from true, mutual love. In Berlin you will find stickers on lampposts saying ‘Pizza for everyone but Elon’ and ‘Fuck Musk’. The Berlin band Von Wegen Lisbeth scored a hit with the song Elonwhich sings about how the Tesla boss is rejected from the legendary techno club Berghain.

But just like the federal government, the state of Brandenburg, where the factory is located, is also a strong supporter of the factory. If the expansion plans do not go ahead, planned infrastructure investments will also be delayed, the state government has warned.

There is considerably less enthusiasm at the local level. In a referendum in February, local residents voted against the expansion by a two-thirds majority. The vote was not binding, so Brandenburg is pushing ahead with the plans with some changes. And so the anti-Tesla protest is also a protest for democracy, says spokesperson Lucia Mende of the activists. “As is the case with climate protests, the problem is multi-faceted.”

The demonstrators want to camp in the camp at least until Sunday. The organization is still somewhat hesitant about the content of the plans. The police are therefore present in large numbers around the Tesla factory. They are “prepared for all scenarios” because “disruptive actions and crimes” are not excluded. The police union says it is concerned about calls to storm the factory.

The Grünheide municipal council will vote on the construction plans next week.