Steffen Meyn
"People need meaning and nothing else! And something to eat." Steffen Meyn
Steffen Meyn, born on 11.9.1991, grew up in Langenfeld (Rhineland). He was interested in music and theater at an early age. At the time of his death on 9/19/2018, he was studying at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and making film and performance works.
His first own apartment was a formerly occupied house, about whose history he made a documentary film. Everything that impressed or concerned him - climate protection, veganism, capitalist alienation - he sooner or later processed in his art.
When he met the occupation in Hambacher Forst in 2017, there was no question that he would film there as well. He had a great longing for a community with which he could live and in which he could engage - the idea of living together without hierarchy and with new careful communication models suited him very much.
Steffen, however, always oscillated between complete socialite and loner. He approached everyone, brought strangers together, organized parties and festivals, and had an enormous circle of friends, but then he also withdrew again to be alone with himself. He never got anywhere, although he was loved everywhere.
He also approached the forest alone and first from the perspective of an observer. He kept this perspective for a long time, even when others felt that he already belonged completely. For he could not completely immerse himself in the occupation. Even if he admired radical opinions in others, they did not correspond to his own nature.
Steffen had an unshakable belief that people can and should deal with each other in good faith. In his view, conflicts did not have to be won, but resolved. In his involvement during the 2018 eviction, he followed this idea.
Although he preferred to call himself a reporter or journalist, he became part of the activist project. Only he did not want to use his own body in the front line, but his camera as a link between the radical squatters* and the bourgeoisie, from which he came.
With the camera he also became the protector of the activists from police violence. And so he was forced to bypass the restricted freedom of the press in the forest and pursue his new task in the trees. He paid for this decision with his life.
Steffen Meyn died on Sept. 19, 2018, the seventh day of the eviction.
Steffen Meyn's death anniversary will be 5 years on September 19, 2023.