#274: Self-ID law, pro-Palestinian conference, Tesla job cuts
An Englishman who once fought tooth and nail for an East German village
Dear 20 Percent,
Twenty-three years ago I wrote a piece for The Guardian about Michael Gromm. The English writer and translator lived in Berlin and had made it his lifework to save a tiny Brandenburg village threatened by a giant open-face brown coal mine. Gromm’s dedication to Horno and its inhabitants was unwavering so it was all the more heart-breaking when the villagers were finally evicted to make way for giant diggers (like the one above).
Brown coal, or lignite, has been mined across Germany since the 1920s. Not only have dozens of villages been bulldozed to extract the stuff, it is also the dirtiest, most carbon-intensive fuel on the planet. Researching that story put a serious dent in my belief that Germany was an eco-pioneer, as its Energiewende (energy transformation) powered by wind and solar suggested. As recently as 2021, Germany mined and burned 123 million tonnes of lignite. Only China mines more. According to the government’s climate roadmap, Germany will continue to burn lignite to generate power through 2038.
A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from British writer and former Germany correspondent for The Economist, David Sherriff. He told me he’d written an English-language novel based on Michael Gromm and his battle for Horno: Angels Over Lusatia. I got a copy and gobbled it up. It brought back memories of an extraordinary larger-than-life character and his David-vs-Goliath struggle against big energy companies and the German state. Gromm has, sadly, died since then but his story remains inspiring because it suggests that immigrants can and should be fully involved in the politics of their adopted country.
Anyway, David will be launching Angels Over Lusatia tomorrow (Wednesday) night at Helle Panke in Prenzlauer Berg, just up the road from where Gromm once lived. The event will be held in English and German. I’ll be there.
More news below.
Maurice
PS: Thanks to today’s sponsor, Feather! And since blustery weather is back, come out Saturday to the first of 20 Percent Berlin’s bi-weekly comedy nights below a historic transformer station in Friedrichshain — Spicy Comedy at Umspannwerkost. This week we’ve got the hilarious Dan Stern, Passun Azhand, Fay Walsh and Chris Davis (and 20 Percent’s Andrew Bulkeley aka Drew Portnoy). Tickets!
Police pull plug on pro-Palestinian conference
On Saturday, the Pälestina-Kongress, an event organised by Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East to show solidarity with the Palestinian cause, was shut down after just two hours. Police turned off the power in the Tempelhof venue when Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta, who has been banned from political activity in Germany, began a talk via livestream. Meanwhile, British-Palestinian doctor and Glasgow university rector Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was prevented from entering Germany at BER Airport. He had been scheduled to talk about his stint as a volunteer surgeon at a Gaza hospital at the beginning of the war. German politicians across the spectrum had accused the conference of platforming antisemites and people glorifying violence while pro-Palestinian voices accuse the Berlin police of trampling on freedom of speech and the right to assembly. In the run-up to the conference, Jewish Voice for Just Peace had its bank account frozen by state-owned Berliner Sparkasse.
Self-ID law passed
Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, passed the government’s new self-determination law on Friday, a significant boost for trans rights. The legislation vastly simplifies the procedure for trans and non-binary people to update their gender identity in official records and documents. The law replaces legislation from the 1980s under which an official change of gender identity required a court order and expert testimony. People who officially changed their gender were banned from marriage, had to be permanently incapable of reproducing - i.e. sterilised, and had to have undergone surgical transition. The outdated law was declared largely unconstitutional by Germany’s highest court in 2011, but only the current SPD-Green-FDP coalition took it upon themselves to update the code.
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Tesla cuts jobs
Till recently, there was talk about expansion of the Grünheide Tesla factory and growing the workforce to 22,500. Now Tesla says it will lay off 10% of its staff around the world. The Brandenburg plant will not be immune. While Handelsblatt (paywall) reported 3,000 German jobs could be slashed, RBB said sources believed the cuts would primarily affect 1,000 temp workers.
A selection of upcoming events curated by The Next Day Berlin:
Sound System Culture: As it Sounds Conference & Festival
Thu-Sun, 18-20.04, 5 - 10 pm; 21.04, 3 - 8 pm. Projektraum Kunstquartier Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2A, 10997 Berlin. Free entrance.
A four-day free event featuring workshops, talks, live performances, exhibitions, and DJ sets exploring the legacy of sound systems within contemporary club communities.
Baby Jesus
Friday, 19.04, 7 pm. Schokoladen, Ackerstrasse 169, Mitte. Tickets: €10.90/€12.
Hailing from Halmstad, Sweden, 🎧 Baby Jesus infuses 60s garage rock with modern influences à la Velvet Underground, keeping rock alive with a fiery, raw edge. #garagerock #noise
Sahra ٩
Friday, 19.04, 11:59 pm - 5 am. Lido, Cuvrystrasse 7; Kreuzberg. Ticket: €22/24.
SAHRA (Sah-raa), a night-out in Arabic, blends SWANA music styles like Arabic oldies, Shaabi, Electro-tarab, and Oriental techno, uniting the dancefloor with diverse beats. 🎧 DJ Dumtak #arabictunes #orientaltechno
For more culture and nightlife, subscribe to The Next Day Berlin.
Factoid
Our pals over at Handpicked Berlin have released their annual Start-up and Tech Salary Trends report. Handpicked analysed 1,150 reponses to its salary survey and has put together a deep dive into the data, complete with nice charts and tables. The median reported salary was €75,000 — which shows how formerly “poor but sexy” Berlin has transformed into a place where at least some people are making decent money. The gender pay gap remains a problem: Women and non-binary reported earning an average of 15% learn than men in comparable positions. Explore the detailed report here.
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Thank you - this about coal mining has bugged me a for long long time. Germans love to lecture everyone on the need to address climate change, even at the cost of destroying the economy but ignore the elephant in the room
Germany has completely backed itself into a corner energy-wise. If they're now paying more for American natural gas than Russian, and they shut down all nuclear power plants, and the rate of growth for renewable energies plateaus, where else can the energy come from other than coal? I don't see any way out other than Germans eating the substantial costs once coal is phased out, unless they turn the nuclear plants back on. What to do?