"Digger stood still for 7 hours  
  Work at the Bettelmannsholz disrupted yesterday - Police arrested eight Protesters"

On the 15.10.´96  a 30 m wide corridor was cut through the forest, directly beside the occupied beeches and since then the contractors continued work daily - even on weekend and in the darkness.

We mobilized very short-term for an actionday - our aim was to stop work for a day.

Just before work started on the 21.10. we occupied the digger, normally working in the forest and two women d-locked themselves to the hydraulics. The two policemen who were already on site were at a loss and also the workers didn´t really know how to react. ("-But this is not the "Startbahn West". - Why are you doing this ?" - "Startbahn West" was a MASSIVE protest against a new runway early 80´s - not really sure about the date - in Frankfurt) A machinist hurried to get his machine out of the forest, while the digger operator explained his view to the press. - Comment: "We are not even building here - We only tidy up." (!!!) The expected reaction of the police didn´t came -maybe because it was raining ?- and so we made the best of the situation and enjoyed the silence, which was back in the forest for a while.

At about 14 o´clock, after also a TV-Crew came to film the blockade in the rain we heard from the camera-operator that some kind of special unit was on the way to evict us. We awaited the SEK-Erfurt coming to evict the trees. Because at that stage there was actually no one up there (now we can tell it), we ended the blockade and tried to get up the trees as quick as possible and to mobilise support and media.

About 60 policemen (we were at that stage about 10 people) arrived at site and arrested the people still on ground in hand- and feetcuffs.

One person was arrested after he actually left the site !(after warning), being dragged out of a car of two locals. The car and the people inside got searched and a camera seized. The people were kept until late night.

Here two quotations from the BILD (something crappy like "Daily ..."
(I guess they are not as funny anymore)

"Demo in chains - but every lost working hour costs 150 DM."

"The state has to take every minority seriously and protect it. But it´s difficult to see more in this dozen climbing freaks than a highly celebrated polit-sect."