Halle (Saale), Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
On the edge of an Old Town in Eastern Germany a stretch of street comprising 200-year-old Baroque houses lies in ruins. The fact that the former "Grüne Tanne" inn and the individually listed building at number "2168" are still standing is thanks to squatters from the GDR era.
The dumpster is filled to the brim. Clay, stones, and shards—shards that brought no luck. It has stood here in a courtyard in the center of Halle for years. Nature has since reclaimed what was meant to be the start of a new beginning for a house with a history dating back to 1828.
The street of the taverns
Back then, Mansfelder Straße—originally called "Steinweg" and known as Klaustorstraße until 1890—was the starting point of an important trade route heading west. Dozens of inns and taverns clustered just outside the city’s Klaustor gate.
The building at number 59—situated behind the dumpster—was also an inn at the time; under the Napoleonic numbering system, it was designated "2168" when viewed from the city center.
The building next door simply bears the number 60; it was a residential building, yet one featuring an impressive Neo-Renaissance façade, as noted by the Arbeitskreis Innenstadt (Inner City Working Group).
As for the "Grüne Tanne" at number 58 on the other side, proprietor Kurt Lange proudly advertised it in the 1942 official telephone directory as a "historic inn—in business for approx. 400 years—with running water."
The Sex Shops quits too
Water still flows here—at least when it rains. Three years ago, the last tenant on this side of the street—"Geli’s Erotikmarkt", a Sex-Shop—moved out, leaving the historic buildings standing like broken teeth. To the left, the former "Goldenes Herz" hotel gleams with its beige façade, having been painstakingly renovated by a private owner.
To the right, on a vacant lot currently used as a parking area, the "Neue Höfe Tuchrähmen" project is set to create apartments, a supermarket, and an underground garage—and, following public protests against the planned felling of a horse chestnut tree over a century old, the project will proceed without harming the tree.
A "vibrant quarter"
Computer renderings from the developer, Norsk AG, already showcase this "vibrant quarter"—a project the Frankfurt-based company promotes as one that "will forge a link between history and the present by incorporating three heritage-listed buildings and involving extensive coordination with heritage preservation authorities." By the end of 2024, the ruins are expected to have been revived, once again housing pubs, shops, and medical practices.
It is a new lease on life for these old houses—buildings that survived only thanks to a few young people who, faced with the housing shortage in the GDR in the late 1970s, saw no other option but to move into a place where no one else was living.
The house-squatters of socialist times
Thomas Adolphi and his then-wife Birgit discovered the old coaching inn at Mansfelder Straße 59 during what Adolphi calls "scouting walks"—strolls through Halle’s decaying historic district. "The front building had been empty and open to the elements for months, if not years," he recalls. Two elderly ladies were living in the rear building under wretched conditions.
"The roof was damaged, the fixtures had been stripped out, all the windows were smashed, and the main water line had been cut." With great effort and the help of family and friends, the young couple—now a family of three thanks to their little daughter, Anna—renovates the musty "fairy-tale castle."
It features half-timbered walls bowed with age, a crooked rear loggia, and windows with bullseye panes; throughout the process, they are locked in a constant battle of wills with the housing authority, which would prefer to see the condemned building sit empty.
They improvise extensively, overcoming material shortages by installing bathroom fixtures salvaged from nearby abandoned ruins. During the renovation, the old house reveals its secrets: colorful painted designs lie hidden beneath the ceiling soot, and parquet flooring is discovered under layers of floor wax inches thick.
Dozens with one bathroom
Before the GDR collapses, other unauthorized tenants move in. They share the building’s single bathroom and gather in the backyard over wine. The state-run housing authority (VEB Gebäudewirtschaft) offers the former squatters the chance to buy the house while the GDR still exists.
"But we turned it down because we knew the kind of difficulties owners of multi-family houses in the GDR had to contend with," explains Thomas Adolphi. In 1988, he moves his family to Mecklenburg "so our children could grow up breathing cleaner air." Later, the other tenants attempt to purchase the building from the city. "But the city gave preference to investors with deeper pockets."
