Resistance to privatisation is as old as neoliberalism itself. While numerous successful re-municipalisations and defensive battles have managed to slow down the neoliberal onslaught on public ownership in Germany, the Left continues to find itself on the back foot.4 However, 26 September 2021 marked a significant turning point when the trajectory of battles against the detrimental effects of private ownership began to shift. The ‘Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co.’ campaign triumphed in a referendum in the city-state of Berlin, advocating for the expropriation of all private housing corporations owning more than 3,000 flats within the city. Much to the surprise of many observers and participants, a decisive majority of 59.1% of voters supported the resolution proposed by the initiative, which had been spearheading an impressive campaign for three years. This campaign galvanised several thousand Berliners, transforming them into activists committed to dismantling the stranglehold of colossal, financialised corporations on Berlin’s housing market.
The activists met with resounding success and have since tirelessly campaigned to ensure the will of the Berliners is upheld and the referendum is executed. Their struggle persists, as representatives of the real estate and construction sectors are well coordinated. Despite the poor reputation of private real estate among Berlin tenants, it is regarded as an acceptable partner by Berlin’s governing Social Democratic Party (SPD). The SPD’s aversion to expropriation is so strong that following its re-election in 2023, they opted to form a coalition with the conservatives rather than continuing the progressive alliance with the Greens and, notably, the Left (which support socialisation). The movement remains steadfast in its fight for the implementation of the referendum result, through tenant organisations, demonstrations, and other means.
The Berlin initiative has its legal basis in an article of the German constitution that has remained unused in the 70-year history of the (West-) German state. Article 15 of the German basic law offers the possibility of socialising land, means of production or natural resources irrespective of the will of private owners. While it makes clear that the current owners must be compensated, expert opinion is virtually unanimous that compensation can be below market value. Interestingly it specifies that socialisation means not just the expropriation of assets but also their transfer into the common economy (Gemeinwirtschaft). This is generally understood as involving the democratisation of decision-making and orientation towards public welfare rather than private profit.
The campaign built on the growing consensus in German society that neoliberal policies went too far. Following the privatisation drives in Germany from the era of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the 1980s and 1990s, extending well into the 2000s, a potent countermovement for re-municipalisation has been brewing in Germany for the past 20 years. Between 2005 and 2017, the energy sector alone witnessed 284 re-municipalisations of public infrastructure that had previously been privatised.5 This surge was propelled by local citizens’ movements. In 2013, a citizens’ referendum compelled the city of Hamburg to repurchase all municipal network infrastructure (including water, energy and heating). Rural municipalities re-acquired privatised grids and formed supra-regional municipal associations, and some previously state-owned housing was repurchased in Berlin and other locations. The trend towards re-municipalisation is a promising sign for the revival of public ownership of public services and for the socio-ecological transformation. However, the momentum has faltered in recent years, suggesting that the peak of the re-municipalisation wave may have already passed.6
The expropriation struggle in Berlin is based on a very similar political starting point, but goes far beyond re-municipalisation projects. Berlin was hit by a massive wave of privatisation in the 2000s. After a banking scandal involving a state-owned bank, Berlin found itself on the brink of bankruptcy, prompting the local government to enforce a stringent austerity programme. Hundreds of thousands of formerly municipal flats and plots of land were sold at an embarrassingly low price to hedge funds, private companies or pension funds. Following numerous mergers, acquisitions, and overall market consolidation, these flats now belong to a handful of large Europe-wide groups such as Vonovia, Heimstaden, or Adler. In the early 1990s, over 500,000 flats in Berlin were state-owned – by the end of the 2000s, only 250,000 remained.7
Berliners are acutely aware that these corporations do little with these flats beyond exploiting them for profit through escalating rents and speculative valuations. Consequently, Berlin is now in the midst of a housing crisis. The city has a high influx of people and a strong demand for housing, a situation that private corporations are exploiting by raising rents exorbitantly and constructing expensive new flats rather than affordable social housing. As the campaign activist Isabella Rogner stated in a 2023 summer hearing in the Berlin parliament: ‘When I assess the past two years, my primary observation is that the situation on the Berlin housing market is worse than ever for us tenants. If this trend continues, we will have lost the city that you the Berlin government all claim to defend in a few years. You have the opportunity to save this Berlin, to preserve the homes of millions of people and to shield them from displacement. The instrument for this, socialization, is right before you’.8
The expropriation campaign focuses precisely on the obvious failure of the privatisation of housing. Instead of seeking to re-municipalise these flats by buying them back at overheated market rates and hoping that the private owners will be willing to sell, the campaign has taken a big further step. It proposes to expropriate big housing corporations at well below market value and – interestingly – to not return them into state control. The campaign has presented a concept for the administration of the flats to be expropriated, in which the tenants, as well as representatives of civil society, make decisions in council structures, with the state playing only a minor role. Critically reflecting the experiences of state ownership in the 20th century, the initiative presents an imaginative model centred around the radical democratisation of decision-making.9
Socialisation as the campaign proposed went far beyond classical models of ownership: expropriation of large companies, compensation below market value and radical democratisation and de-marketisation. These ambitious demands were the campaign’s starting point – and they triumphed. The initiative presented a concept that proved convincing: Berliners have long had good experiences with communal housing or municipal water supply. While far from perfect, there were political and organisational experiences with public ownership of these public service sectors. Coupled with a political programme that adequately tackled the scale of Berlin’s housing crisis, there were broad majorities in favour for expropriation. As recently as 2018, when the campaign was launched, such an outcome seemed unthinkable.
In Germany, there is awareness of various forms of state ownership in basic services, even under capitalism: municipal water companies, state schools and municipal housing are part of people’s lived experience. However, public ownership is rarely fully democratic and seldom completely rejects the profit motive in favour of focusing on public goals. States or municipalities are just as capable as private owners of pushing for the extraction of profits and underinvestment in critical infrastructure. This is especially true if assets have to be bought back at market rates, thereby constraining the possibilities of public actors. Moreover, state property is always at risk of being privatised once more when budgets are tight. Despite some good experiences with re-municipalisation, which have led to improved quality of supply and cheaper prices, there is no discernible trend towards a wave of public ownership appropriate to the problems of the 21st century – especially not in the energy sector.