By Birgit Bürkner and Mary-Lou Künzel
When, on a dull January day, people from outside the school with measuring tools wandered through the Arndt High School in Dahlem, the caretaker was the first to find out about the plan that had already been sealed: a mobile phone antenna with eight distributors is to be installed on the building’s tower…
A base station with 5G radiation, directly above the heads of 775 students and 77 educators. The people of Arndt are not in the mood for that!
Zlatko Aleksic (17), 11th grader: “Besides the suspected health impact, our school probably doesn’t even benefit from better mobile phone reception. Nobody knows how the radiation spreads” Photo: Ralf Lutter
In the district parliament session on Wednesday, they bring a residents’ motion: the district office should refrain from setting up the antenna.
Reason: “The harmlessness of the radiation exposure could not be proven to us so far. We are particularly concerned about the classrooms on the top floor of the school building, only a few meters away from a possible antenna. But also in the rest of the school building and the adjoining kindergarten as well as the Erich Kästner elementary school, considerably harmful radiation exposure cannot be ruled out.”
Konstantinos Daras (17), 11th grader: “Not only our school and we as students are affected, but also the day care center and the children next door. Nobody knows what the consequences of the mobile phone antenna on the roof could be. We are against it!” Photo: Ralf Lutter
Steglitz-Zehlendorf’s education councilor and former mayor, Cerstin Richter-Kotowski (60, CDU), made the decision. The district office receives 9,000 to 11,000 euros a year lease for the transmission mast.
Education councilor Cerstin Richter-Kotowski approved the mast for Telekom Photo: Ralf Lutter
According to Richter-Kotowski, however, it was not additional income that was decisive, but improved reception. The school community also benefits from this…
“I think that’s sheer mockery and a political scandal of the first order,” says Werner Weilhard (77), board member of the association “Freunde des Arndt-Gymnasiums”. Those affected were not informed.
Werner Weilhard taught history, politics and French at the school for 35 years until 2009 and is now a member of the task force against the antenna Photo: Ralf Lutter
The counting community of SPD, Greens and FDP in the district calls for clarification in its own application: “Pupils are wards. Health protection is essential.”
Expert opinions should be submitted: on the health impact, how the installation is compatible with the monument protection of the house, whether the kestrels under the dome lose their nesting sites.
