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{\hl Home of the Drag Queen's Trout Farm: an Interview with 
Queer Squatters in Berlin}

by Joey Cain
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{\it [Joey Cain is a friend from here in SF, taking a year off
and traveling around the world. Right now he's in Europe (Spain,
Germany, England, Poland, Czechoslovakia\dots) and when in
Germany in November, ran into these queer squatters in East
Berlin, and lucky for us, wrote it up as an article/interview. I
miss you too Joey!

If you want to write to the squatters interviewed here, their
address is: Tutentowe Farellenhof / Mainzerstr. 4 / 1034 Berlin,
Friedrichen / GERMANY. -- tj]}

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East Berlin's Frankenfurter Strasse is a wide boulevard lined
with kitch buildings from the Stalinist Era. It's architecture
was at the service of the state: a bureaucratic grafting of
ruined Renaissance on to bad Bauhaus, whimsical in it's own way,
but essentially cold, monumental, lifeless. A street designed for
tanks and cars to rumble down and maybe ceremonial parades, but
one where you begin to feel fatigued after walking the length of
a block. Running off from this boulevard, by the Samariterstrasse
U Bahan stop, is a street of very different desires and values.
It's name is Mainzerstrasse, a small street that is home to the
occupiers of 10 squatted buildings and their neighbors.

'hippie van' photo

\picture{2.75in}

The first feeling that hits you on turning on to Mainzerstrasse
is the exhilaration of a carnival. Lining what seems to be the
whole right hand side are buildings whose upper stories are
draped with banners and flags. The street level is a patchwork of
colors, murals and bright spray painted graffiti. Facades of the
buildings speak, as most of the buildings in East Berlin do, of
their last 50 years of history. Crumbling and potmarked, they
exude a closeness and friendly funkiness that is a welcomed
relief from the compulsive cleanness and gentrification of West
Berlin. In contrast to Frankenfurter Strasse, people are actually
walking, hanging-out, talking and living on this street. The
storefronts, having long ago forgotten the businesses that
abandoned them, are sporadically occupied by cafes, bars and info
shops. Clustered in front of them on the sidewalk and spilling
into the street are chairs, benches and tables; some are empty,
others occupied by groups of people talking or just sitting
quietly. The squats and squatters reflect a diverse range of
interests and desires. They are a mixture of anti-imperialists,
anarchists, women, lesbians, men, queers, gays, straights, bis,
revolutionaries, sensualists, freedom seekers and many others.
What drew me here was the desire to meet with the folks at
Tutentower Forellenhoh Squat, the gay men's squat.

Mainzenstrasse manifests an East Berlin that's experiencing an
extraordinary period in history, one usually only encountered in
disasters, utopian fiction or libertarian revolutions. The
authoritarian state has collectively jumped out of the window,
taking along with it much, if not all, of the physical and
psychological apparatus of control. In the spaces of freedom
opened by it's absence, some people have begun to build a new
society based on equality and imagination. It's a situation that
has enabled the squatting of over 150 buildings in various parts
of East Berlin with little or no police interference. There is
something of the ``festival of the oppressed'' feeling on the
streets where the squats are. Squatters are working hard to
rebuild and reinhabit abandoned and trashed out buildings, while
at the same time creating community spaces for partying,
socializing and education. 

There is also a frightening and ugly element growing in East
Berlin. Along side the banners and flags on Mainzerstrasse are
windows and doors fitted with all forms of shutters and metal
grate coverings. The reason, violent attacks by Neo-Nazis. It's
worst example so far is one night when 300 Nazis descended en
mass to Mainzerstrasse armed with molotov cocktails,
sledgehammers and giant crowbars. They were out to smash the
squats and kill a few squatters if possible. Such is the
situation in East Berlin now that the police actually came and
defended the squats from their attacks. (Hardly a week goes by in
East Germany that the racist Nazis don't attack and kill some one
of ``Non-German'' origin ie: Romanian, Vietnamese, etc.) One day
I and an anarchist friend from East Berlin were walking to the
squats when we saw a group of eight Nazi skin heads, 2 blocks
ahead of us, walking in our direction. Spying a bus coming in the
opposite direction, my friend said in a calm panic, ``We take
this bus''. A hideous deja vu of 1930's Berlin is beginning to
haunt the streets. While those who use the opening of freedom to
build their vision of a just society, so to do the enemies of
that vision use the same opening to fight it. However, in some
way the Nazis may be the least of the squats problems. When the
reunification of Germany happens (by the time you read this an
accomplished fact) the police state of West Germany will have
stepped into the power vacuum. West Berlin's police force will be
moving in with their expertise and equipment to do battle with
the squats, just as they have done in West Berlin.

My introduction to the folks at Tutentower Forellenhof (roughly
translated means, ``House of the Drag Queen's Trout Farm'') Squat
began in the bar they collectively run. A small, simple sign
stating ``Gay Bar'' hangs over what looks to be a boarded up
storefront. In it's past life it was the location of a hair
dressing salon, the ghost of which still lingers in the etched
pane of glass doors advertising it as such. Inside, the smallish
space is surrounded by mottled and nearly bare walls whose
textures and colors reflect it's years of abandonment and decay.
A cinder block bar has been built at one side of the room and
some chairs, a couch and a few tables are scattered around. The
lighting was subdued but not to the point where you couldn't see
across the room. Behind the bar a piece of wall art made up of an
arrangement of rubber trout, that has something to do, as does
name of the Squat, with a camp German T.V. (as in television)
show from a few years back. To tell you the truth I never quite
figured it out to the satisfaction of my rational mind but my
queer soul immediately intuited it's meaning and humor. The
music, a mixture I'd never heard before even in the hippest
underground queer scenes in San Francisco, ranged from hardcore
and acid house to Edith Piaf and opera. One evening a divine
Tutentower queen named V. introduced me to the ``music'' of Ellen
Foster Jenkins, an American opera ``singer'' of the first half of
the 20th century. It seems she wanted to be a great opera diva.
Having absolutely no voice but tons of inherited wealth, she
produced her own screeching and off key recordings of opera
arias. The beers and her voice had me falling off my stool in
hysteria screaming ``No no no no no\dots !!!''. In addition to
the fabulous music, cheap beer and champagne, an amiable mixture
of dykes, fags, queers and non-gay identified women and men were
there hanging out together.

'tutentower' photo

\picture{2.75in}

Tutentower Forellenhof Squat itself occupies five stories of an
abandoned building which the queens are very hard at work and
play to reclaim and make their home. A bookstore is being built
on the ground floor. There is a beautiful backyard courtyard
festooned with spray paint graffiti and old bath tubs in which
the queens share their baths and beauty. One room serves as the
Drag Room. They were hesitant to show it to me because of it's
trashy appearance until I assured them that I'd never seen a Drag
Room that wasn't trashy. 

Hanging out with the queers from Tutentower Forellenhof Squat
fired a deep spark of recognition and affection in me that I feel
with my comrades and lovers in the Radical Faeries back in the
USA. There was the same wonderful sense of play and humor while
holding a deep, sometimes almost unspoken, commitment to fight
against the haggard and oppressive sleep walk exploitation of
life. They held that beautiful vision of gay liberation that is
not trapped in the tunnel of single issue ``gay rights'' but ties
true queer liberation in with the liberation of all exploited
people.

The following interview took place in mid-July, 
pre-reunification, in the large and sunny room that is the
combination communal kitchen and living room of the squat. About
10 people who were awake at that early hour of 2 p.m. gathered
for it, though Bastian, understanding and speaking English the
best, did most of the speaking. Many of the queens did not want
their photograph taken for fear that the Nazis may get ahold of
it and be able to pick them out on the street when alone.
Coincidently Pedro, a queen and Homocore fan from Spain, was also
there visiting. Lucky for me because he had a copy of Homocore,
something I had forgotten to bring, to show them. 

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{\bf Joey:} This squat has been here since May 1980?

{\bf Tutentowerite:} Yes. Since the second of May.

{\bf J:} How did it start?

{\bf T:} It was just an idea in April. Someone said very late in
the night at the bar (Club Anal), ``Why don't we squat a
house?''. It wasn't very serious but we thought ``Well it's
boring so why don't we squat a house''. There were some others
and then we got a group of ten who knew each other.

{\bf J:} From Club Anal?

{\bf T:} From the bar, from political action squatting and all
that. It was not possible to squat in West Berlin because you get
evicted within 24 hours. We knew that there was the beginning of
the squatters movement here in East Berlin. We met three times,
just talking a little bit and looking for houses. Then we read
something in a left-wing magazine that on this street there were
10 houses which are rotting and empty. There was a meeting,
several groups came together, and we said ``Well lets take this
house, you take that house''. The idea that this would be
squatting 10 houses at once for us was important. We felt that it
was not possible for us as a gay group to squat a house without
other neighborhood squats because of the threat of the fascist
groups and all that. So we said, ``OK this is a good idea. 10
houses are quite secure for us.'' 

{\bf J:} So the whole street has only been squatted since May?

{\bf T:} Yes. We were the first house. On the first of May there
was the yearly demonstration in Krausberg and afterward we
decided that we would go in here. It took 1 to 3 weeks and all
the houses were squatted. In number 3 is a woman's and lesbian
house. The other groups in the other houses are mixed. The whole
street is a mixture of people from East and West Berlin and it is
getting more international.

{\bf J:} Are most of the people in this squat from West Berlin?

{\bf T:} We are 26, 27, 28 people, I'm not quite sure. About 6
are from East Berlin.

{\bf J:} Do you have good relations with the lesbian house hold?

{\bf T:} Yes.

{\bf J:} So they are not separatist?

{\bf T:} Some are but we have good relations with them.

{\bf J:} Do people in the squat identify themselves politically
as anarchists or autonomen, etc?

{\bf T:} Oh, we've got Catholics, Protestants, Vegetarians,
Alcoholics, Drag Queens, Machos, everything. Anti-imperialists,
Autonomen, Anarchists, Reformists.

{\bf J:} So there's no one dominating political ideology?

{\bf T:} Left-wing radical (laughter)

{\bf J:} How does the house-hold live? Is it a collective? Do you
make decisions through consensus or voting or what.

\picture{2.75in}

{\bf T:} It is a kind of small community. We do every thing
collective, our household, our kitchen, our cooking. We share the
money so everybody has to put in 15 marks a week to buy food and
drinks. We run the bar collectively. We try to have a meeting
once a week to come to important decisions, not by voting or
elections but by consensus, discussing it. It normally takes 3 or
more hours with a lot of scenes. Plus it's not only things
concerning the house but also concerning the street, the
movement. 

{\bf J:} Do you have interactions with the larger gay community
in East and West Berlin?

{\bf T:} Yes, we have struggles (laughter). The idea of our
project was, on the one hand, to be in the gay community and on
the other to be in the squatter community. But now we've got more
trouble with the gay community than with the squatter community.

{\bf J:} What sort of troubles?

{\bf T:} Well first of all there is a really large gay community
in West Berlin. East Berlin gays are just beginning to act, to do
something and so this is a difference. But troubles, for example,
at the Cristopher Street Day this year everybody was expecting
that the ``Tutenhaus'' would gather and say something. Everybody
in West Berlin knows that this project exists. We've had some
parties here. ``Hot Peaches'' from New York performed here and
many people cam and we had much fun and partied. We decided on
Cristopher Street Day, because it becomes more and more a
carnival, a carnival and no political messages, we decided to
read a declaration about political prisoners in East and West
Germany. We entered the stage and one of us read it and there
were great protests and they tried to throw us from the stage. 

{\bf J:} The organizers?

{\bf T:} Not only the organizers but almost everybody who was
demonstrating against us because they don't want to listen to
such things.

{\bf T:} We said that this is a minority and they need not only
gay things but other minorities. But they don't want to listen to
it and it was a real scandal to throw us off the stage.

{\bf J:} What problems have you had with the Nazis? I know about
them attacking the squats here in Berlin. Have they specifically
targeted this squat?

{\bf T:} They didn't know that this was a homosexual squat. They
came because we are left-wing.

{\bf Tutentowerite \#2:} They haven't attacked our squat for
being gay but there were attacks on gay bars here in East Berlin
on the 20th of April, Hitler's birthday. They attacked a gay bar
in Alexanderplatz. 

{\bf J:} In the larger gay community is there a consciousness
about the growing Nazi threat?

{\bf T:} There's a growing conscious about it. We work with some
people from West Berlin to make a tactical force so if gays are
attacked in parks or in toilets they can dial it's number if they
do not want to call the police because normally the police don't
take it seriously. There is beginning to be a growing conscious
in the gay community to defend it self because the attacks on
people in the parks at night grows and becomes larger. 

You should know that the Nazis are split over the gay question.
One of their leaders, Michal Kuning, one or two years ago it came
out that he is gay. It was a little scandal.

{\bf J:} I bet! They've always had this...problem.

{\bf T:} He said that he is gay.. homosexual, and that is the
best way for men when they are...

{\bf T\#2:} He had his own series about homosexuality, about
fascism and homosexuality, and he said that it is better for the
``comrades'' to get rid of their sexual energy to other comrades
than with a German woman. 

{\bf J:} So does he have many supporters?

{\bf T:} Well the funny thing is that the Nazi squat 2 kms from
here is influenced by the Michal Kuning way and it was published
in a paper that they are split about the question of
homosexuality. 

{\bf J:} I've heard that the Nazis have 3 squats?

{\bf T:} It's really only one squat. It's not far away from here
and it is where they founded a new Nazi party and it is a
coordination center for all Nazi terror activities here in
Berlin. The officials have said they have to leave the building
but they have not thrown them out.

{\bf J:} Are the people involved in the Nazi squat movement and
on the street connected with the older Nazis.

{\bf T:} Yes. There is a kind of international Nazi network.
Nazis from West Germany, Austria and all over the world come to
the German Democratic Republic because there is a lot of racial
prejudice here and a lot of young people who are open to Nazi
theories and all that. The police have said that there are about
in Berlin 5,000 active militant Nazis. Football hooligans,
skinheads etc. and spread over the GDR they said there were about
30,000 Nazis now. It's ridiculous. It's the clamor of
reunification that makes the Nazis grow now.

{\bf J:} What's been going on in this or larger gay community in
Berlin around AIDS. 

{\bf T:} In the first years we were shocked but you don't really
hear anything about it now or not that much. In Germany it has
not radicalized people. Some groups tried to copy ACT-UP
activities but I think in the USA the ACT-UP groups are more
radical than in Germany. Last year the ACT-UP group tried to
squat a house so people who are sick with AIDS can have a place
to live because a lot of people with AIDS can not work any longer
and have no money so they need houses. They tried to squat a
house but it was really ridiculous because they told the police
before that they were going to squat it and they just squatted it
for one hour. It was in the news paper the day before.

{\bf J:} So they were just doing this for publicity?

{\bf T:} Yes, for publicity. 

{\bf J:} Do you have much contact with or knowledge of the
radical gay community in the USA? The Radical Faeries or Homocore
stuff.

{\bf T:} A little bit but not that much. We have more connections
with Netherlands, we know some gay squats there.

There has been a kind of development in the last two or three
years. There was a situation where on the one hand there was the
political community, left-wing, political activists and on the
other hand the gay community and there was no coming together.
And so there was a schizophrenic situation that lots of gays are
working in the revolutionary groups and don't know each other.
Then two or three years ago there were the first meetings where
people come together. This house is in a way a result of this.


{\bf J:} So there are about 27 people living here?

{\bf T:} Yes.

{\bf J:} And you've done much redecorating in the place?

{\bf T:} Oh yes. We had to because it really was a mess when we
took it. Walls were broken down, no electricity or water, there
was no cellar so we had to rebuild and put in toilets and get rid
of the rubbish in the house.

{\bf J:} I noticed in your bar last night that it was really
mixed. There were a lot of woman there as well as men. Do people
from the other squats come into the bar and hang out.

{\bf T:} Yea, we are not very separatist. Most of the time it's
half and half.

{\bf J:} So their not uptight about it.

{\bf T:} No. They love us.

{\bf J:} There are not so many squats left in West Germany?

{\bf T:} No. There are still some even in West Berlin. 4 or 5 in
West Berlin. There is a very funny thing. In Krausberg there was
a squat, Wassertoth-latz, and it was really a project, million of
DM to rebuild it and now it has been resquatted. Here in East
Berlin we are about 100 houses. This part of the city is called
Friedricksein. There are about 40 squats now Mainzerstrasser,
Kreutserstrasse, Richardstrasse, they are all in about a one km
circle. And then in the Pranzlaurerberg there are about 40 or 50
houses and Stadtmitte there are about 30 houses and we have to
work together with all the houses. There is 

\picture{2.75in} 

for example a weekly meeting of all the squats in East Berlin. We
try to make negotiations with all the houses because the
government tries to get in contact with single houses to make
contracts, contracts for the building. So we put against it a
group for negotiations a collective involving 80 houses to
negotiate with the government so that they can't divide it. It is
really hard work because there are lots of squatters in East
Berlin who have not had any experience with negotiating with the
government. So if there is an offer for a contract they will
write their name on it and it's bullshit because they get a
contract for two years and they build up the house and then they
will be thrown out. Anyways the movement is quite young. The
first squats were at Schoenhauser Allee in November of 1989 and
then it really begins in April and May of 1990.

{\bf J:} Are there many people who were involved in the older
squatting movement of the early 80's involved now or is there any
communications with these people.

{\bf T:} I think there are some personal connections and people
know a lot of what happened to the old squatting movement in 1981
so that we try to not the same faults and to tell the new
squatter what can happen.

{\bf J:} Like if they all go on vacation in the summer the police
will move in.

{\bf T:} Yes. They won't actually come this summer. I think it
will take the elections. Now it seems to be that the East German
police are not going to evict the houses. But it can happen
because next week the West German police will be able to act in
East Berlin so probably the situation will change. We still have
quite good relations with the East German police, they are not
that aggressive as in West Germany. Normally they come and inform
us about Nazi activities. For example the Mayor of Friedrichshain
has really tried to get them out because they bring terror and
violence to the neighbors. But the police have not wanted to
throw them out. So at the moment it is still ok but we think it
will change very soon.

{\bf J:} The West German police are going to take over the East
German police?

{\bf T:} Everything is going to be taken over. The state is
dying. There is kind of a vacuum. The old state is dying and the
new {\it[?].} . It made possible the squatting movement. There is
no real power of the state here and so there are many good
things. But not only good things the growing Nazis up of the Nazi
movement is also a result of it. It is not only positive.

One other thing is that there about 65,000 flats in East Berlin
which are free. And there is absolutely no money at the moment to
rebuild it. The Mayor of Friedrikheim got 5,000,000 marks for 120
houses and you can rebuild a roof for 2,000,000 for example. 

{\bf J:} So there are not a lot of people from the west coming in
and buying up these houses.

{\bf T:} Not yet. Everybody was expecting it but it didn't
happen. {\bf T\#2:} I think that they are afraid of us.

{\bf J:} And it is also a politically unstable situation.

{\bf T:} It is because the unemployment rate will be about one
and a half million at the end of the year cause all the factories
will all be closed that are not economical anymore. There are a
lot of houses here where there are still owners and which were
run by the state, public property run by the state. And now it is
unclear situation because the owners can get their rights back
till January 31 of 1991 and if they don't do it these houses will
go to a sort of holding company. 

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