44
ically minute, surrounded by powerful bourgeois-led municipalities that
had successfully resisted amalgamation, thanks to the restrictive suffrage in
Prussia. The large cities around Berlin each had their own energy utilities,
which they zealously protected. The German revolution of 1918–1919
and the introduction of universal suffrage opened the floodgates for socialist schemes that were geared to substantiate the promise of democracy
with more equitable and affordable public services for all. The creation of
Greater Berlin in 1920 marked a milestone of this kind. Amalgamating
seven cities, 59 smaller municipalities and 27 landed estates, the new
Berlin grew 12-fold in size. It incorporated all existing municipal energy
companies into its own electricity and gas utilities (Bewag and Gasag),
which were, henceforth, entrusted with implementing territorial unification by means of uniform service standards, tariffs and working conditions. To the new government of Greater Berlin, it was of critical
importance to have a single utility accountable to a single city authority in
the provision of power or gas services. Equally important was the provision of electricity and gas produced by the city’s own utilities. This involved
resisting persistent approaches by the major national energy providers of
the day, Reichselektrowerke A.G. and Ruhrgas A.G., to supply the capital
as part of their own programmes of territorial expansion and system centralisation (Fig. 4.1).
In West Berlin of the 1970s, a very different crisis of accountability
emerged around the city’s energy provision. Ever since the Berlin blockade of 1948/1949 and the subsequent political division of the city, West
Berlin had sought to minimise dependence on East Germany and East
Berlin by generating its own electricity and producing its own (town) gas.
This strategy of urban energy autarky required a huge number of power
and gas plants to be built within the city limits, but this was tolerated—
indeed, celebrated—by West Berlin residents throughout the 1950s and
1960s as a symbol of defiance of the ‘insular city’. Decisions by the city’s
power utility to build ever more generating capacity were not questioned
for fear of appearing to undermine West Berlin’s very existence. By the
1970s, however, popular resistance to the serious environmental and
public health hazards posed by continuous infrastructure expansion—
especially to the city’s air quality and ecosystems—was posing a massive
threat to the compact of non-accountability between utility and citizen.
The more the energy utilities insisted on the need for additional plants to
keep West Berlin functioning, the more the protestors questioned the funT. MOSS
ically minute, surrounded by powerful bourgeois-led municipalities that
had successfully resisted amalgamation, thanks to the restrictive suffrage in
Prussia. The large cities around Berlin each had their own energy utilities,
which they zealously protected. The German revolution of 1918–1919
and the introduction of universal suffrage opened the floodgates for socialist schemes that were geared to substantiate the promise of democracy
with more equitable and affordable public services for all. The creation of
Greater Berlin in 1920 marked a milestone of this kind. Amalgamating
seven cities, 59 smaller municipalities and 27 landed estates, the new
Berlin grew 12-fold in size. It incorporated all existing municipal energy
companies into its own electricity and gas utilities (Bewag and Gasag),
which were, henceforth, entrusted with implementing territorial unification by means of uniform service standards, tariffs and working conditions. To the new government of Greater Berlin, it was of critical
importance to have a single utility accountable to a single city authority in
the provision of power or gas services. Equally important was the provision of electricity and gas produced by the city’s own utilities. This involved
resisting persistent approaches by the major national energy providers of
the day, Reichselektrowerke A.G. and Ruhrgas A.G., to supply the capital
as part of their own programmes of territorial expansion and system centralisation (Fig. 4.1).
In West Berlin of the 1970s, a very different crisis of accountability
emerged around the city’s energy provision. Ever since the Berlin blockade of 1948/1949 and the subsequent political division of the city, West
Berlin had sought to minimise dependence on East Germany and East
Berlin by generating its own electricity and producing its own (town) gas.
This strategy of urban energy autarky required a huge number of power
and gas plants to be built within the city limits, but this was tolerated—
indeed, celebrated—by West Berlin residents throughout the 1950s and
1960s as a symbol of defiance of the ‘insular city’. Decisions by the city’s
power utility to build ever more generating capacity were not questioned
for fear of appearing to undermine West Berlin’s very existence. By the
1970s, however, popular resistance to the serious environmental and
public health hazards posed by continuous infrastructure expansion—
especially to the city’s air quality and ecosystems—was posing a massive
threat to the compact of non-accountability between utility and citizen.
The more the energy utilities insisted on the need for additional plants to
keep West Berlin functioning, the more the protestors questioned the funT. MOSS