Fire on the site of the science park subway

Although he spent the last ten years of his life in Paris, it is often forgotten in the grey French capital that the famous painter Vassily Kandinsky began his pictorial studies in Germany. More precisely, in Munich, at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. From this early period of one of the future founders of abstract art, we often remember the painting Der blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider, 1903), which also became the name of the expressionist circle in which he participated a bit later on, and inevitably more rarely his painting entitled München-Planegg I (1901), which depicts a more classical country landscape.

A century later, the village of Planegg where Kandisky hung his youthful easel, some ten kilometers west of Munich, has obviously changed a great deal. Its fields and trees have now been transformed into huge steel and concrete buildings, housing an industrial park of biochemical companies, research centers (such as the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence) and a fitting university campus. And it’s so that all these nightmarish people no longer have to take a common commuter train every day, that the vast worksite to extend the U6 subway line was launched in Planegg in February 2023, with the inauguration of the new kilometre-long section scheduled for 2027. The metro line will provide a direct link between the city’s two major scientific clusters: the Garching physics cluster in the north of the city (which houses a neutron nuclear reactor for research purposes), and the Martinsried biology cluster in Planegg to the west. In other words, a key transport infrastructure “to pave the way for the future to the research Mecca of Munich and the entire high-tech state of Bavaria”, as declared by its regional Science Minister on the occasion of the inaugural foundation stone for a project estimated to cost 212 million euros.

And yet, just as the authorities were rejoicing at the humming progress of the work, something unexpected happened in Planegg on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, July 26, hidden by the high wooden fences blocking the view of passers-by to the great work in progress. In the words of the town’s mayor: “We always thought that the site had to be well secured so that nothing could happen. But nobody expected people to burn down the subway construction site.”

Two days ago, unknown assailants did indeed cross the fence in question, before setting fire to two construction machines and then vanishing into the pleasant summer night, causing several tens of thousands of euros worth of damage in their wake (and three other machines damaged by the flames). The authorities immediately turned their attention to the so-called “far-left political crime”, and the K43 section of the State Security Service, which specializes in such matters, was put in charge of the investigation.

As for the local journacops, they were once again reduced to expressing their perplexity at this latest anonymous attack in Germany’s techno-engineering mecca: “Is this the continuation of a series of as yet unexplained attacks? In recent months, several suspected arson attacks on vehicles and infrastructure have taken place in and around Munich – most recently against a cell phone antenna in Forstenrieder Park [July 16] and against cable ducts along the Föhringer Ring [July 8].”

[German press summary (Münchner Merkur & Süddeutsche Zeitung), July 26, 2023]

via: sansnom