Germany’s first major mobilization linked to the recent wave of European student protests brought people into the streets of 34 cities on Saturday. Gen Z Regelt, the organizing group, estimated attendance at 120,000, while police put the figure at roughly half that number. The demonstrations were largely peaceful during the day, but violence broke out after nightfall in seven municipalities.
Frankfurt recorded the most serious incidents. After 9 p.m., shops on the city’s main commercial street were looted, including a weapons store. Police quickly recovered the stolen weapons. Public broadcaster ARD reported that two shoe shops were among the businesses targeted, while numerous storefronts were damaged.
More than 100 police officers were injured in the Frankfurt clashes, and 50 people between the ages of 13 and 29 were arrested. Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart, Bremen and Nuremberg also reported attacks on police involving objects and pyrotechnics. More than 200 people were detained nationwide, many for remaining in areas that police had ordered them to leave.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt blamed what he described as left-wing extremists and vandals of migrant origin. Roman Poseck, the interior minister of Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, said most of those arrested were German. Dobrindt’s comments followed the circulation of images showing young people, many of them masked, taking part in the looting.
“We prevented the violent excesses seen in Paris thanks to the police forces,” Dobrindt told Bild, praising what he called a successful operation based on a large presence and the decentralized deployment of officers.
Police also contained groups of demonstrators in areas where unauthorized protests had been called. At Hamburg’s central railway station, a social-media appeal for vandalism ended with 120 arrests.
Dobrindt, a leading figure of the Bavarian Christian Social Union in Germany’s coalition government, coordinated the response from a control center with the federal police leadership and the authorities of the German states. He later traveled to a location in Berlin where clashes had occurred.
The government had prepared for possible unrest for weeks after Gen Z Regelt announced the demonstrations. Police monitored radical groups and potential trouble spots. The incidents also prompted reactions from the far-right Alternative for Germany, whose youth organization briefly appeared at a demonstration near Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, causing tension before leaving.
Sources: El País Internacional.