Amy Mek
Germany’s Nürtingen District Court has ruled that Klaus Roth, a senior social worker, must vacate his home of 24 years so that six ‘asylum seekers’ can move in. Roth is 75 years old and has had three strokes, asthma, diabetes, and two intervertebral disc operations. Nevertheless, the Court has ordered him to surrender his six-room apartment by September 30th.
Ironically, during the height of Germany’s 2015 illegal migrant flood, Roth volunteered to aid and welcome ‘refugees,’ approximately 40 of whom have already been resettled in town.
Roth has lived in a six-room state-subsidized apartment of around 150 square meters, which was also used to accommodate his three children, but now lives in the apartment with his partner. Roth fought the Neckartailfingen community legally to remain in his home. However, the state has unilaterally decided that this apartment is now too big for Roth and his partner and would be better utilized by housing six migrants instead. Roth feared the move due to his failing health and the stress of moving. However, the Court ruled:
“To the conviction of the court it is clear that the termination of the tenancy on the part of the defendant is a hardship …, but this does not outweigh the legitimate interests of the landlord”
Watch the following RAIR Foundation USA exclusively *translated interview with Klaus Roth:
The municipality of Neckartailfingen released a statement addressing its controversial decision to fight for Mr. Roth’s eviction:
The local council decided not to implement the accommodation of refugees in Neckartailfingen in a central accommodation but in a decentralized way in rented apartments and community-owned apartments. A total of three landlords in Neckartailfingen have rented 7 apartments for refugees. Unfortunately, we were not offered any other vacant apartments.
Since the municipality of Neckartailfingen is obliged to accommodate additional refugees in 2019 and 2020, the municipal council has decided to terminate the tenancy agreement with Mr. Roth, observing the 9-month notice period, in order to use the 150 square meter apartment for the accommodation of refugees. Alternatively, Mr. Roth was offered a community-owned 78 square meter apartment. We are currently in discussion with Mr. Roth about moving to this apartment, appropriate support when moving, etc.
Roth claims to have made substantial personal improvements with his own resources to the apartment. In addition, he foresees many issues in a potential new apartment as the new space will be too small for his belongings and will be less than half the current space.
Roth also is uncertain how he will be able to accomplish the move after two intervertebral disc operations physically.
Mayor Gerhard Gertitschke has expressed his dissatisfaction with the solution but is bound to say: “We are under pressure and have to take in more refugees. There is no way to say that we are not accommodating them.”
Possible Alternative Solutions?
In fact, there were various solutions. An original solution was to use a gymnasium or a festival hall for accommodation, but the community did not want to use public facilities. There were also calls to private landlords who could offer empty apartments. However, there were no responses.
First case?
In the early 1990s, the district court in Göttingen ruled that a municipality could confiscate a tenant’s apartment to accommodate refugees if other options were exhausted. The community’s interest in accommodating refugees outweighed the interests of German citizens.
Klaus Roth and his partner are not the first people in Germany to leave a community apartment because they are supposed to accommodate asylum seekers. Since the refugee rush in the late summer of 2015, several cases of tenants being forced to leave the country have made headlines. For example, at the end of September 2015, in Eschbach, a tenant of 23 years was forced to give up his apartment to accommodate migrants.
Roth’s eviction in favor of migrants is just the latest in a growing list of similar incidents, some of which can be referenced here, here, here, here, here, and here.
This is happening not only in Germany but also in Sweden, Italy, and other Western European countries as well. For example, in Italy, the government has seized entire hotels to house migrants.
*Many thanks to Miss Piggy for the translation
Vlad Tepes
RAIR Foundation
Pensioner Roth obviously doesn’t need a six-room apartment for him and his partner. I can see where the municipality thought a more modest housing alternative that was offered would take care of the matter. That should have been the end of it, but not so fast here, Charlie.
A German family in need of suitable housing should have been offered Klaus Roth’s apartment instead of the riffraff Muslim ‘migrants’ that actually got it. That’s what’s wrong here: officials looking after outsiders instead of their own German people! . . .
Wow, kicking someone out of an apartment that has become home to him, where he has faithfully paid rent for 24 years doesn’t seem wrong to you? He could have bought the place twice over by now, I bet. The problem with Klaus is that he was foolish to help bring them in in the first place and now they are taking his home. Immigrants should stay in their own countries and not upset others around the world. If they are in serious need, they should enter countries legally, not invade them like marauders.
That’s the problem with getting handouts: the government giveth and then the government taketh. In this case it’s a municipal property, but what if they run out of the available space? The private landlords will be next and even single homes. This is exactly what the marxists did in communist countries and later in former African colonies. Look up Walter Veith’s videos, he’s been talking about that for many years.
You are right, Natalie. Give the devil an inch and he will take a mile.