B EAST Magazine website

B EAST editor Joel breaks into Iraq’s abandoned embassy in suburban Berlin

The moustachioed face on the cover of the book is unmistakable – but what is a portrait of Saddam Hussein doing on the dirty floor of a derelict building in the quiet suburbs of Berlin?
We were led to a ’60s-era brick building by some neighbourhood youths on bicycles. “It’s the old Iraqi embassy,” they told us, though at first we thought they were playing a prank. Why would a diplomatic mission be abandoned then left to deteriorate, the windows smashed, the gardens reclaimed by nature?
Once inside there was no mistake – we were standing on sovereign Iraqi soil. The floor was covered with smashed glass and the charred remnants of a fire. Some of patches of the floor sagged, making us question the structural integrity of the three-floor building. The corpse of a fox lay rotting on the matted carpet.
Yet there amongst the debris were shelves heavy with folders and books – diplomatic records simply left behind for the squatters to read when the embassy was vacated. We flicked through folios of banking statements of the Botschaft der Republik Irak, awed at the huge numbers in the balance column, whatever currency they represented.
Antiquated office equipment remained in place, ready for the diplomats to return. Black-and-white tourist brochures invited us to visit sunny Baghdad. In one pile of books was a whole pictorial magazine devoted to images of Saddam from the days when the CIA was giving him weapons, not firing them at him.

This building, hidden away in a quiet cul-de-sac off a quiet street in Berlin’s north, is caught in a timewarp. It was gifted in perpetuity by the German Democratic Republic to Saddam’s Republic of Iraq – two countries which technically don’t exist any more. Hence the confusing legal status surrounding this property. Iraq deserted the building post-re-unification, preferring to work from their more comfortable West Berlin embassy. Then America began dropping bombs back home, and Iraq had more pressing concerns than what to do with its former East German headquarters.
Perhaps it’s time for the people to reclaim the building, Berlin-style. Our Canadian buddy Kevin plans to throw a party here called “The Green Zone”. B EAST will be there to lend a hand, if and when it happens.

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