Several thousand people across Germany took to the streets on Saturday, mostly peacefully, at the call of the initiative "Gen Z regelt", with demands including better education and affordable housing. After the demonstrations ended, riots broke out in several cities, especially Frankfurt am Main, Cologne and Hamburg, in the evening and during the night. There were injuries and looted shops, according to the report.
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) said a strong distinction must be made between peaceful democratic protest and the riots. He said the rioters were not school students and blamed "violence-prone left-wing groups and migrant rioters", saying they would be identified and held accountable, and that he expected harsh penalties.
Frankfurt police said they faced up to 1,500 violent troublemakers, many of whom had traveled from surrounding areas and some from more distant cities. Hessian Interior Minister Roman Poseck (CDU) said 54 suspects aged 13 to 29 were arrested, mostly German nationals with a migration background; he described the group as "predominantly migrant". He said officers were attacked continuously and without restraint, and called the night a starting point for a tougher approach. But Frankfurt police president Stefan Müller said no political motive was discernible among those who rioted; police described them mainly as young men with a migration background who were already known to officers. HR reporter Jakob Schaumann urged caution, noting that not all suspects had been identified: with 1,000 to 1,500 violent people, 54 arrests did not mean all had been found, and the violence had relatively little to do with the demonstration itself.
In Cologne, police said the largely peaceful demonstration was ended early by organizers because of isolated disruptions, and violence escalated in the evening, especially around the cathedral. WDR reporter Jochen Hilgers said that after the "harmless and colorful" Gen Z protests, left-wing autonomists, pro-Palestine groups and older left-wing activists appeared to have taken over; in his words, it was "after Gen Z" that escalation occurred, not the Gen Z protest itself. Police spokesman Sascha Wallmeroth spoke of groups that had come to Cologne specifically to commit crimes. Operations leader Martin Lotz said the manner of the attacks, the masking and the weapons suggested targeted action rather than spontaneous escalation. NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) said the protests had been hijacked by left-wing extremists and violence-prone groups of young men.
The violence drew condemnation from federal politicians. Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) condemned the riots but said the voices of those who protested peacefully must be heard, adding that young people's concerns were legitimate and highly relevant and that educational success in Germany still depended too much on background. Left Party leader Ines Schwerdtner warned against pushing Gen Z's demands aside, saying neither the affordability crisis nor social cuts nor the broad desire for peaceful protest would disappear because small groups of frustrated people had rioted. AfD leader Alice Weidel used the riots to attack CDU policy on X, saying they were the result of a CDU that had courted and promoted left-wing extremism for years, combined with uncontrolled migration.
Education and protest researcher Nina Kolleck told tagesschau24 that violence after the protests was not fundamentally surprising. She said the situation had become much more acute in recent years, with the gap between rich and poor widening and society's climate becoming more tense. Rents had risen sharply and more children and young people were frustrated, including in their studies; when a generation grows up feeling it has far worse chances than a small percentage with wealthy parents, that prepares the ground for individual groups to work against the system, she said.
The organizers of the Gen Z demonstration explicitly distanced themselves from the riots. A spokesperson for "Gen Z regelt" said they had no influence over what happened after the rallies ended.
Sources: Tagesschau.