The clearing and clearing of part of the Fechenheimer forest in the east of Frankfurt will continue this Friday.

The Autobahn 66 therefore remains closed between the Bergen-Enkheim and Maintal-Dörnigheim junctions.

According to the police, at least five environmental activists were still in the forest on Thursday evening.

During the day, police had used height intervention teams and cranes to safely lower seven tree-crouched protesters to the ground, and unoccupied treehouses and shacks were demolished.

A 2.7-hectare part of the Fechenheim forest is to be cleared so that a connection between the 66 and 661 motorways can be built.

Matthew Trautsch

Coordination report Rhein-Main.

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Ralph Euler

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung, responsible for the Rhein-Main section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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The second day of the eviction goes like the first: peacefully, without violent clashes between climate activists and the police.

While most of the squatters had already complied with the request to leave the forest on Wednesday, others, probably around ten, spent the night in the remaining tree houses.

They want to stop the clearing and asphalting of the area.

They are primarily concerned with setting a sign of resistance, because the fight is basically hopeless: since daybreak, the construction and felling machines have been milling their way from the edges into the cleared parts of the forest.

Tree house at 40 meters height

At ten o'clock the police attack on the highest and most symbolic construction of the forest squatters begins.

The "Highpod" is a tree house that rests in the crown of a mighty oak tree and from which a thick flagpole leads even further up.

At the top of the mast, at a height of almost 40 meters, the rainbow flag and the Antifa flag flutter in the wind.

No pallet truck can be extended that high.

That's why the Autobahn GmbH, which wants to clear the forest for the construction of the Autobahn, got a gigantic truck-mounted crane.

Its boom can be extended up to 78 meters.

Clearing the oak tree on which the Highpod is installed is the trickiest part of the police operation.

The special forces of the height intervention team have to get the occupiers down safely from the top.

The oak must also be protected, because it is one of the so-called beetle trees, with a red K sprayed on the trunk.

The long-horned beetle could nest in the bark of these old oak trees.

The clearing of the forest is only permitted under the condition that the K-trees remain standing while the motorway route to the Riederwald Tunnel, which is currently under construction, is being built around them.

In the late autumn of this year, the long-horned beetles that have hatched are to be taken from the trees and resettled.

For these reasons, the truck-mounted crane is used for clearing.

Four police officers from a special task force are pulled up on a chain.

The occupiers know what to expect: someone climbs the mast up to the flags.

A little below, ropes are attached in several directions, which lead to the neighboring treetops.

Already on Wednesday the activists fled from the police climbers on such tensions.

The police cannot simply cut the ropes, otherwise structures could collapse and people could fall.