(updated version)

ERKELENZ (dpa-AFX) - Shortly before the evacuation of the village of Lützerath in the Rhineland lignite mining area, which is expected from Wednesday, the mood has heated up noticeably. The police cleared away barricades on the access area on Tuesday, which outraged the climate activists. Over loudspeakers, the police appealed: "Do not attack the police task forces! If you attack the police, you may be liable to prosecution!"

Occasionally, there were fisticuffs. In several rows activists braced themselves against the emergency forces, there was pushing and shouting. One activist with blood on his face said he was injured on the nose when he was carried away from his sit-in. Police used a cherry picker to take two activists down from a so-called monopod, a type of high seat.

"The police have now advanced and pressed massively," said Johanna Inkermann of the initiative "Lützerath lebt." "But we will not be pushed away. It's an extremely dynamic situation."

In a confused formation, about 300 activists had formed human chains in the morning and set up a sit-in blockade, with some participants digging themselves about half a meter deep into the ground. "The point is that we are blocking the access to Lützi," said one activist.

The activists chanted, among other things, "Get lost!", "Shame on you!", "To the barricades!" and "Protecting the climate is not a crime!". The tone towards the police was partly aggressive, the atmosphere heated up. Most of the activists were masked. Some spoke English, others French, Italian or Dutch.

The energy company RWE wants to excavate the coal lying under Lützerath - for this purpose, the hamlet on the territory of the city of Erkelenz is to be demolished. Since Tuesday (10.1.) the police has the possibility to evacuate the village due to a general order of the district Heinsberg. However, the Heinsberg District Administrator Stephan Pusch (CDU) wanted to inform in the afternoon first about the eviction and the associated police operation.

Left-wing leader Janine Wissler expressed support for the activists in Lützerath. "It is so absurd what is happening here. What a lot of money, what a lot of effort to still be dredging coal in 2023, which according to studies you don't even need anymore," the member of the Bundestag told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

In protest against the Greens' stance, a Düsseldorf alliance unloaded 250 kilos of lignite briquettes in front of the North Rhine-Westphalian party headquarters on Tuesday. "We wanted to hold up a mirror to the Greens that they are no longer the party of climate protectors, but the coal party," said a spokesman for the alliance.

Climate activist Luisa Neubauer criticized the police strategy as not particularly peaceful. Politicians had announced a peaceful eviction, but what was happening on the ground was "pretty much the opposite of that," Neubauer told Deutschlandfunk radio.

The Aachen police chief in charge, Dirk Weinspach, on the other hand, told the Phoenix television station that he and his colleagues were approaching the operation professionally and were well prepared. They are preparing for a deployment of up to four weeks. He expects a variety of forms of resistance. In addition to barricaded houses, there are about 25 tree houses from which protesters must be safely extracted, which is technically complex. The police want to take a de-escalating approach, he said. However, he said, it was clear to him that there was a small group among the protesters who were prepared to use violence.

Energy expert Claudia Kemfert of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) spoke out against the removal of coal from under Lützerath. The 1.5-degree target cannot otherwise be met, she warned. "The decisive factor is not the coal phase-out date, but the remaining CO2 budget - and that will be significantly exceeded." The Greens argue that in exchange for the mining of Lützerath coal, the coal phase-out has been brought forward by eight years to 2030./cd/DP/he