Almost everyone in the southeast Berlin district of Karlshorst knows them: two street corners full of abandoned three-story houses with rotting window frames. The locals call them the “Russian houses.”
For almost 50 years they housed families of Soviet and later Russian officers. But in the summer of 1994, when Russia withdrew its last troops from Germany after the end of the Cold War, the buildings stood empty. Thirty years later, they are still owned by Russia.
Locals report that an elderly Russian-speaking couple sometimes sweeps leaves and garbage from the fenced properties on the corner of Andernacher Straße/Königswinterstraße and Ehrenfelsstraße/Loreleystraße.
Residents have repeatedly called on Berlin authorities to put an end to the vacancies. The pressure is growing as the housing shortage in the city worsens.
“The owner, Russia, should actually be forced to do something positive here – either demolish, rebuild or renovate. It’s a shame that this place is such an eyesore,” a local resident told DW.
Against the backdrop of the debate about freezing Russian assets in response to the war against Ukraine, Ukrainian-born Berlin MP Lilia Usik has now proposed confiscating the empty buildings and handing them over to the authorities in her former homeland. According to her research, there are at least 66 apartments in the “Russian houses”.
“My initiative is to transfer these houses to Ukraine within the framework of the sanctions,” said the conservative Christian Democrat, who comes from the Donetsk region and has lived in Berlin since 2011.
“Ukraine can then sell them or return them to Germany. In this way, they could be reintroduced into the crisis-ridden Berlin real estate market,” she added.
How did Russia get the buildings?
Karlshorst is a quiet, green district of the German capital that is popular with seniors and young families. However, it is often associated with the Soviet troops that were stationed here during the division of the city.
On May 8 and 9, 1945, the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany was signed in Karlshorst, marking the end of the Second World War. Only a few days earlier, the Red Army had called on the people of the district via loudspeaker to vacate their homes within 24 hours.
About 8,000 Germans were expelled from their homes and occupied by Soviet officers, says historian Christoph Meissner, research associate at the Berlin-Karlshorst Museum, which is housed in the building where the surrender was signed. Over time, these houses were returned to the Germans by the Soviet occupation authorities when their troop presence in Karlshorst was reduced. It was not until 1994 that the troops finally left the territory of the former GDR.
Unanswered questions
“It is paradoxical that these houses are still owned by the Russian Federation,” says Meißner. “When the Soviet and later Russian troops withdrew between 1990 and 1994, all properties were transferred to the Federal Agency for Real Estate (BMA).”
However, Meissner stressed that there was no separate agreement on the transfer of the buildings in Karlshorst to Russian ownership. He suspects that they may have been handed over to the Soviet Union by GDR authorities.
The Federal Agency for Real Estate, which manages former GDR properties, is also unclear as to how the “Russian houses” came into Russian ownership. When asked by DW, the agency was unable to provide any information on whether there had been any agreements in the recent past that would have provided for the buildings in Karlshorst to be handed over to Moscow.
What else does Russia own in Berlin?
Formally, Russia only owns two properties in the German capital today: the embassy and the Russian House of Science and Culture in the city center. In contrast to the “Russian Houses,” both are considered diplomatic property.
However, Russia managed to acquire another piece of land in 1994, said Meissner: a former airfield with a hangar from the early 20th century, located right next to the Berlin-Karlshorst Museum. This fenced-in and video-monitored site had also been falling into disrepair for years.
Unsuccessful transfer attempts
But how likely is it that German authorities will confiscate Russian property? According to the Berlin state government, there are currently no legal options to do so.
A foreign state owner has the same rights and obligations as any other property owner, the Berlin Department of Urban Development, Construction and Housing told DW. “Concrete plans for the use of the houses by the state and the district office presuppose that the Russian Federation is willing to transfer them back. However, this is currently lacking,” the authority said.
However, there were attempts to buy the “Russian houses” from Moscow, it said. In 2020, the Berlin authorities sent a letter to the Russian embassy expressing their interest in buying the property. They never received a response.
But Berlin MP Lilia Usik remains determined. In the autumn, she wants to discuss the issue both at the local level with government representatives and with her party colleagues from the CDU. First, she is trying to attract the attention of MPs in the German and European Parliaments.
“If we succeed, it will set a precedent,” Usik said. “Russia must understand that dictatorship comes at a very high price, that you cannot simply accept all the destruction it brings without being held accountable.”
This article was originally written in German.
