The Russian media reported that almost all the trees in the Tiergarten park in the center of Berlin were cut down to heat houses. We decided to check if this is true.

The news that the Germans cut down trees in the Tiergarten park spread across many Russian media. This was written about in News.ru, "Ren-TV», RIA FAN, "Arguments and facts», Pravda.ru, "Sight» And other more small news resources. "RIA Novosti” was more careful in its wording - they write that Berlin residents are “ready to cut down parks.” "Russian newspaper», has probably already edited the news, but from the address of the article you can see that the headline used to sound like “In Berlin's Tiergarten park, residents cut down almost all the trees, and now they are interested in manure.” Lenta.ru also mentions that the Germans began cutting down trees.

Almost all media published this news with reference to the American Bloomberg. However, in the original article (and in fairly high quality translation On the InoSMI website) there is nothing about the Germans cutting down the Tiergarten in 2022. The article is really dedicated to the energy crisis in Europe, it talks about the rush demand for firewood and wood pellets. However, there is no talk of cutting down any parks.

Tiergarten is mentioned only once in the text: “In Berlin, the crisis creates unsettling echoes of the desolation following World War II. With fuel in short supply, residents chopped down nearly all the trees in the central Tiergarten park for heating." It can be translated as follows: “In Berlin, the crisis brings back disturbing memories of the devastation after the Second World War. Because there was not enough fuel, residents cut down almost all the trees in the central Tiergarten park for firewood.” That is, we are not talking about 2022, but about the post-war period. Moreover, the article notes that “nowadays Berliners do not go to such extremes.”

Tiergarten park in the post-war years.
Source

During the war the park really suffered, and after the defeat of Germany, the few surviving trees were used for firewood and building materials. Of 200,000 pre-war trees survived only about a thousand. However, in 1949 the park began restore, and now it represents more than 210 hectares of forest land.

It is noteworthy that none of the articles contain photos or videos of cut down trees. And if you go to Instagram and look at photos and videos hashtag #tiergarten or similar geotag, you can see that there is no talk of any cutting down.

Our fellow fact checkers from The Insider And StopFake also became interested in the news about the cutting down of the Tiergarten and, like us, came to the conclusion that it was fake and the park, at least for now, was not in danger.