Up to 14,000 demonstrators marched through Neukölln and Kreuzberg on Sunday at the notorious “Revolutionary May Day” demonstration. And anti-Semites in the front row.
By Alina Gröning, Olaf Wagner, Olaf Selchow, Axel Lier, Til Biermann, Katharina Metag, Dirk Böttger, Isabel Pfannekuche, Fabian Matzerath
The demonstration was registered by left-wing groups. Shortly after the start at Neukölln’s Hertzbergplatz there were punches and kicks against police officers. In addition, firecrackers and bottles flew and Bengalos were ignited. The officers used tear gas.
Initially unmolested, dozens of demonstrators at the head of the procession displayed anti-Israel posters. Including symbols of the “Samidoun”, which is classified as a terrorist organization in Israel.
Almost 6,000 police officers from the capital and other federal states as well as from the federal police were on duty throughout the day. The police had set up water-filled barriers, so-called breakwaters, on the demo route.
Read here Check out the May Day Demo Live Blog!
The officials were insulted again and again: “All of Berlin hates the police” and “Bullenschw… get out of the demo” was shouted again and again. “Sch… Police” was chanted several times over the loudspeaker.
For some residents, the demonstration apparently had the character of a happening. On Weserstrasse, people stood on the windowsill of their ground floor apartment, dancing to dance rhythms as the train passed.
A few houses down, young people were sitting on the window sills on the first floor of a smartly renovated old building, dangling their legs and holding beer bottles in their hands.
The train passed the Kottbusser Tor, brightly lit by police searchlights, with almost no major incidents.
At Oranienplatz, the end of the demonstration, shortly before 9.30 p.m. there were scuffles with the police, bottles were thrown and arrests were made. A dumpster burned on Skalitzer Strasse.
The elevator was largely peaceful, said Berlin’s police chief Barbara Slowik in the evening. A police spokeswoman also said that the demonstration as a whole was “much more peaceful” than in previous years until shortly before 10 p.m.
Around 4,000 people rode through Grunewald in the morning for a bicycle parade entitled “autonomous social work in the villa district”. According to the organizers, the demo was directed against excessive rents, the lack of care and the unfair distribution of wealth.
On Walpurgis Night there were riots at a demonstration by feminists in Prenzlauer Berg. Paint bags flew, shop windows were smashed, pyrotechnics ignited. Several participants were arrested.
