HAFENSTRASSE

In the 1980s, the streets along the waterfront in Sankt-Pauli consisted largely of unhealthy and abandoned workers' housing. Around 1981-1982, militant groups of the extreme left started to set up squats. In addition to the actual occupations of the apartments, there were in fact many associative rentals from the city of Hamburg at low prices. In any case, Hafenstraße has become a mythical place for the alternatives in Germany, a place of counter-culture, opposition, confrontations with the police, political and artistic demands... In Bernhard-Noch-Straße and Hafenstraße, the alternatives who settled there, especially between 1984 and 1995, developed a way of life according to their wishes: tags, graffiti, colourful painting of buildings, communal living, bizarre constructions, love of the unusual and anti-conformist... In the early 1990s, the police tightened their grip on the occupants of the premises, with the motive of searching for terrorist members of the Rote Armee Fraktion. Many conflicts broke out. Since the end of the 1990s, the squats have gradually been legalized and organized into groups and associations. Walking through the squats, one can see from the colorful facades and the garden design the alternative way of life of the street residents. If you are interested in activism and the life of alternative groups, the residents of Hafenstraße are friendly and quick to talk about their cause.