Every year on May 1st there is a bang in the German capital. The residents of the affected parts of the city gave up long ago, and the politicians in charge talk the situation up. The result is a unique loss of reality.
Hatred of the state and the police: May Day demonstration in Berlin-Kreuzberg last Sunday.
Fatina Keilani, editor in the Berlin office of the NZZ.
You are reading an excerpt from the weekday newsletter “The Other View”, today by Fatina Keilani, editor in the Berlin office of the NZZ. Subscribe to the newsletter for free. Not resident in Germany? Benefit here.
Around 500 rioters, 123 investigations, 74 arrests, 29 injured police officers – this is the balance of the “most peaceful May Day in decades” in Berlin. The police and interior administration of the German capital were satisfied on Monday, the day after. Satisfied above all with what was missing this time: burning cars, looted shops, civil war-like conditions. But is that really a reason to be satisfied?
Certainly, one can remember that in the past everything was much worse. The very first May Day in Berlin took place in 1987. That was the day on which the “tradition” was established, which to this day forces the police to deploy in large numbers every year and allows them to come up with new concepts to curb violence.
For the “premier” 35 years ago, an entire district of the city was devastated, and a Berlin subway line had to be closed for weeks. The trigger was the planned census, against which there was fierce resistance. In the morning at 4:45 a.m., the police arrived in a backyard in Kreuzberg. Officers broke down the door of an office planning a boycott of the census and confiscated thousands of leaflets. This mission was perceived as a provocation, which formed the breeding ground for everything else. During the day it was still calm, in the afternoon the storm was brewing.
Sometimes it was bad, sometimes worse
Since then there has not been a peaceful May Day in Berlin. Sometimes it was bad, sometimes worse. The damage was always in the millions. For years, people in Kreuzberg prepared again and again – boarded up their windows, took cars to other parts of the city.
It does not seem daring to assume that such a “tradition” in, say, Munich, would have been prevented from arising. But in Berlin people see themselves as tolerant, i.e. towards the milieu that sets the tone. The border to left-wing extremism cannot always be drawn cleanly, right down to the city government. The alternative list in the state parliament, a forerunner of the Greens, had castigated the police operation in 1987 as a “provocation”.
At some point, the clever idea came up to counter the rioters with a festival, the “Myfest”. It has been taking place since 2003 and was only canceled from 2020 to 2022 due to the pandemic. The festival was not invented by politicians, but by local residents. The people of Kreuzberg were simply fed up with living in a state of emergency for days once a year.
5830 police officers on duty
This year, too, the principle – family-friendly parties instead of street fights – should at least contain the riots. The district of Neukölln approved five street festivals. The police presence already shows that all this is not enough. On Sunday alone, 5,830 officials were deployed in the capital, 2,130 of them from other federal states. Even they couldn’t prevent cars from burning, bottles and stones from flying.
“The whole of Berlin hates the police!” It rang through the streets again and again. And that didn’t bother the around 14,000 people who ran along. May 1, 2022 in the capital may have been less destructive than previous years. But only Berliners dare to sell that as a success.