Tens of thousands of young people took part in peaceful demonstrations across Germany over the weekend, organized by the group "Gen Z regelt" in 34 cities. They called for more investment in education, relief from rising living costs and greater social justice, and many protested against a possible return of military service. The protests began loudly but calmly, as organizers had hoped.
After nightfall, the mood shifted in major cities, especially Cologne and Frankfurt am Main. In Frankfurt, the Hesse interior ministry said 17 businesses were damaged, with partly masked rioters smashing shop windows and looting several stores. More than 100 police officers were attacked and injured, including one hit in the face by a thrown stone. Police arrested 54 people aged 13 to 29; the overwhelming majority had German citizenship.
Hesse Interior Minister Roman Poseck (CDU) said at a Sunday midday press conference that an enormous potential for violence had been unleashed in Frankfurt by left-wing extremists and violence-oriented young people, mostly with migration background. He said only some of the violent actors came from Frankfurt and that many had traveled from the wider Rhine-Main area. Poseck said security authorities would focus more strongly on violence-prone young people with migration background and would further intensify efforts against left-wing extremism, which he described as a major danger in connection with other violent forces.
The organizers of "Gen Z regelt" had already responded overnight into Sunday on Instagram, distancing themselves from any form of violence and from violent acts by other groups or individuals not part of the demonstrations. They said they stood for peaceful protest, democratic values and the right to free expression, adding: "Violence was and is never part of our movement."
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), who inspected the situation in Berlin-Mitte on Saturday, told Bild that excesses like those in Paris had been prevented thanks to highly committed police forces. He thanked officers for a successful operation and said the police strategy of massive presence and decentralized deployment had worked. Dobrindt said peaceful demonstrations had been hijacked by violence-ready left groups and rioters from the migrant milieu. He announced a determined response, saying hard punishments must follow what he called a breach of public peace. He distinguished the peaceful protests from the riots and thanked school student movements for clearly distancing themselves.
CDU General Secretary Franziska Hoppermann told the German Press Agency that it saddened her that peaceful protest was in some cases hardly possible anymore. She said a truly substantive aim of the demonstrations remained unclear to the end and that for some the protests were a perfect cover for violence and riots that the majority of participants surely rejected.
Dirk Wiese, parliamentary managing director of the SPD Bundestag group, told the Rheinische Post that the riots should not overshadow young people's concerns. Their worries about their own future were serious, he said, and politics must act, especially on the lack of opportunity and educational equity. Where protests turned into violence, he said, that must be clearly condemned and a consistent crackdown was the right approach, but it must not obscure the concerns of the young generation that had protested peacefully. Before the demonstrations, the SPD parliamentary group had called for a national education summit involving the federal government, states and municipalities.
Despite the escalations in some cities, "Gen Z regelt" plans to return to the streets soon and intends to join Europe-wide protests on Nov. 20. Hesse Interior Minister Poseck, however, spoke out against such an assembly in Frankfurt in light of the current events.
Sources: Süddeutsche Zeitung.