The eviction of Lützerath: the village being destroyed for a coalmine – a photo essay
After Lützerath in Germany was emptied of its residents to make way for the Garzweiler coalmine, protesters occupied the deserted village while waiting for a showdown with the police. The photographer Ingmar Björn Nolting reports from the village that was to become the fortress of an energy company
S ince 2020, environmental activists have been occupying the trees, fields and houses in Lützerath, a hamlet near the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Erkelenz. They oppose the eviction of the village and the energy company RWE, which wants to extract the millions of tonnes of lignite that lie beneath the village.
Most of the original inhabitants of the farming village have long since disappeared after they received compensation and were resettled during the past decade and a half.
The activists organised themselves, built structures and treehouses and a kitchen in which more than 1,000 meals a day were prepared from donated food.
