The place has long been neglected. One of those abandoned rural stations that you see through the window of a train, imagining the bygone era when the place sheltered a village life. Tesla changed everything. Fangschleuse, a tiny stop in the middle of the pine forests of Brandenburg, on the regional line between Berlin and Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, thirty kilometers from the capital, has become in two years one of the most publicized places in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The station is now one of the main service sites for the Tesla factory in Grünheide, which opened in March 2022 and employs 12,000 people. This location in Brandenburg, a rural state of 2.5 million people surrounding the vibrant metropolis of Berlin (3.7 million), has become the scene of some of the biggest controversies and oppositions currently shaking German society: industry versus ecology, liberalism versus regulation, city versus countryside, East versus West.
In Fangschleuse, in the ballet of trains, factory workers, trade unionists, politicians, environmental activists and local activists cross paths every day. Those who come to work are the most recognizable: they wear black pants and a jacket with the red Tesla logo. More than half of them come from Berlin. They walk in groups, often speaking languages other than German and move quickly towards the shuttle that takes them into the immense industrial complex.
Strong pressure
We also meet a young permanent employee of IG Metall, who works in the pretty level crossing guard’s house rented by the German union. IG Metall has made it an information and recruitment unit. “The interest is great”underlines Markus Sievers, spokesman for the union, who denounces strong pressure from the manufacturer on employees. While it welcomes Tesla’s presence in the region, the world’s leading independent union finds it hard to accept that Elon Musk still refuses to attach the company to the sector’s collective agreement, on a site that is about to become Germany’s leading automobile factory.
And then there’s Manu Hoyer. The 65-year-old activist with short hair and dogs on leashes co-founded the Bürgerinitiative Grünheide, a local citizens’ initiative that has been fighting against the factory’s expansion for months. “Twenty years ago”she left the noisy Berlin, where she was born, to “the calm of Brandenburg”she says. Since Tesla set up shop, she accuses the American manufacturer of destroying the place with the guilty blessing of the authorities. The felling of pine trees, the deliveries by truck, the light pollution from the factory have destroyed the ecosystem of the surrounding area, she believes.
You have 74.59% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.