Unit for special situations and application-related training

The unit for special situations and mission- related training (EbLT) was a unit of the Berlin Police , which the then Interior Senator Wilhelm Kewenig ( CDU ) set up in mid-1987 as a reaction to the riots and the police mishaps on the night of May 1st and 2nd d. J. set up in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg and was disbanded in January 1989 after several problematic assignments and broad media and political criticism.

Founded in response to the May riots in 1987

In the course of the events on May 1, 1987 , property damage amounting to approximately ten million DM resulted from looting and arson. In the absence of sufficient police presence, members of the autonomous scene and their sympathizers were able to act almost unhindered for hours with a previously unknown level of violence against property and people (from approx. 6 p.m. to 4 a.m.). For the first time a anrückender was Löschzug of firefighters attacked, the officials of the fire that had to retreat on foot. The fire engines were destroyed.

After dark, large parts of the power cables and distribution boxes were destroyed, so that the street lights went out. This made it difficult for the police to work. Overall, the four-digit number were from participants in the riots only a few applications Hundreds of police (then use Willingness, one each of the then five departments) over who had to withdraw repeated since the first about four hours after the alert, not all forces of On-duty EBs could be removed from the normal patrol duty and other forces first had to be alerted by telephone.

The unsuccessful police operation met with nationwide media coverage for weeks. Due to the fact that parts of the Kreuzberg part SO 36 (the area in the area Mariannenplatz / Skalitzer Straße / Kottbusser Tor / Görlitzer Bahnhof ) were literally in the hands of the autonomous scene, the public pressure increased, this potential with a new specialized police -Unity to encounter.

Equipment and order

The EbLT was set up with around 40 officers and organizationally affiliated to Police Directorate 5 responsible for Kreuzberg. In view of the experiences with militant violence against police and fire fighters in Kreuzberg (throwing paving stones, Molotov cocktails and stone slabs from house roofs), shooting with precision slings , obstacles on roadways (burning barricades / cars, so-called crow's feet), the EbLT received special equipment for the "street fight". The group vehicles, so-called "tubs", were equipped with solid rubber tires, reinforced side walls and ramming devices on the radiator grille. The officers of the department received - like the other members of the operational readiness - in addition to the conventional helmets, knee / shin / foot impact protectors (Cooper / Roemer ELG) and protective shields, full protective equipment consisting of plastic upper body armor, upper arm guards and ice hockey mouthguards. The EbLT's primary mandate was to carry out evidential arrests in the event of unpeaceful demonstrative actions in the Berlin urban area and to proceed aggressively in hot spots.

This task had already been performed by the so-called arrest and deployment squads (R&D Tr) since the beginning of the squatter demos, which were present in every operational readiness and, if necessary, together with the documentation team with a photo camera (Doku-Tr) to ensure the operational readiness Should make arrests.

The R&D teams were already equipped with rudimentary upper body / arm protectors (Sitek), but most of the relatives were not even aware of this. The protective equipment was in the armory and was not issued. As early as the week after May 1, 1987, a large majority of the members of the operational team bought upper body protectors from motocross, ice hockey and football. This put the politicians and the police under pressure, suitable upper body protectors were officially procured (Krawehl) and those privately procured were paid proportionally.

Several members of the R&D and documentation teams later switched to EbLT. Thus, the EbLT is to be seen both as the forerunner of the Bavarian Support Command (USK) set up in the following year , as well as the current evidence preservation and arrest units (BFE) of the riot police.

One of the other tasks of the unit was to develop tactical concepts for coping with such situations and to transfer these to the other readiness / hundreds.

Criticism of the operations of the EbLT and its dissolution

After several missions, the EbLT found itself exposed to massive criticism, both from the politically alternative spectrum and from bourgeois public reporting. The unit was repeatedly accused of excessive deployments and attacks against demonstrators. On October 10, 1987, the EbLT was deployed alongside numerous other operational units from other federal states on the occasion of a large-scale demonstration against the Wackersdorf nuclear reprocessing plant (WAA) in Bavaria. The EbLT deployed on a massive scale in the course of the dissolution of a forbidden rally in front of the site fence, which resulted in extensive investigations by the Amberg public prosecutor's office over the course of which more than 250 witnesses were heard and more than 25 preliminary investigations were initiated against deployed officials all have been discontinued.

After further, heavily criticized operations in the course of 1988 on the occasion of the May 1st riots and the IMF / World Bank conference in Berlin, public criticism of this police unit reached such an extent that it was from various political, but also internal police forces Sides a resolution of the EbLT was requested. A few weeks after the parliamentary elections in January 1989, which led to the formation of a red-green government coalition made up of the SPD and Alternative List (AL), the EbLT was dissolved by the CDU / FDP Senate.

Despite various allegations against this unit, there has not yet been a single criminal conviction of a member of the EbLT. Among other things, the proceedings initiated by the Amberg public prosecutor's office for failure to identify the individual perpetrators had to be discontinued.