First May in Kreuzberg

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Unregistered demonstration on May 1st, 2006 in Berlin-Kreuzberg
Opponents of Myfest at an unregistered demonstration on May 1, 2006 in Berlin-Kreuzberg

The First of May in Kreuzberg called by left and left-wing organized groups street festivals and demonstrations on May 1 , the Labor Day , in Berlin's Kreuzberg district . The term specifically refers to May 1, 1987, when unprecedented serious unrest broke out in Kreuzberg and the Berlin police had to withdraw completely from SO 36 , the eastern part of Kreuzberg, for several hours . Since then, autonomous and antifa groups have held one or more so -called May Day Revolutionary demonstrations almost every year .

prehistory

Even before 1987 Kreuzberg was known for street battles between squatters or autonomists and the police. In particular, SO 36 was a focus of the autonomous squatter and punk movement in Berlin. On Labor Day , which is often referred to as global working class struggle , traditionally an annual street festival took place on Lausitzer Platz , which was organized by the Autonomen, the Alternative List (AL) and the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin (SEW), among others . In a few years before 1987 there were also minor riots, demonstrations and other political actions on the sidelines of the street festival. However, these were rather normal for the then Kreuzberg conditions and were hardly noticed by the public.

In addition to these activities from the ranks of the New Social Movements , the DGB organized the traditional, large May Day demonstration in West Berlin . In 1986 and 1987, a so-called Affected Block or Revolutionary Block , which rejected the official policy of the DGB leadership, took part in this. It consisted mainly of people from the New Social Movements and had over a thousand participants. Among other things, because of its rejection of the official policy of the DGB, there were police operations against the bloc affected in the two years , which were welcomed by the speakers of the DGB.

May 1st, 1987

The 1st of May 1987 in Kreuzberg is a historic event and became known worldwide through the international press. It drew the attention of a large public to the district, particularly Kreuzberg 36 .

Prehistory to May 1, 1987

The left scene in Berlin was dominated in 1987 by the census boycott (VoBo), a campaign against the census and a call for a boycott. The center of this resistance and of the left-wing scene in general was the Mehringhof (in Kreuzberg 61 ), which, among other things, housed the VoBo office . On May 1, 1987, this office and other rooms of the Mehringshof were broken into and searched by the police at 4:45 a.m. on the grounds that there was a danger of delay .

The mood in Berlin was already tense due to the measures taken by the CDU-led Senate , which were perceived as repressive , and the preparations for Berlin's 750th anniversary celebration .

The riots

Reporting during the riots in front of Bolle
Skalitzer Strasse with the burnt-out Bolle supermarket, May 2, 1987

The traditional street festival was initially peaceful, but the mood within the left-wing scene was irritable due to the search of the VoBo office. In addition, there had already been police operations against the “bloc” at the DGB demonstration on May Day. For this reason, among other things, he had left the DGB demonstration and joined the street festival.

Around 4 p.m., a patrol car in the immediate vicinity of the street festival was overturned by autonomous officers in the absence of the officers, and in the evening two construction vehicles were pushed onto the street. In the meantime, most of the visitors, unsuspecting, were enjoying themselves at the street festival. The police reacted to the isolated disturbances and finally broke up the festival using baton and tear gas . As a result, visitors to the street festival erected barricades on several adjacent streets. The police withdrew from the area around Skalitzer Strasse around 11 p.m. until early morning .

Although BVG traffic according to SO 36 was discontinued and extensive road blocks were erected, more people came to Kreuzberg the whole evening. Among other things, because of the live coverage of the left-wing radio station Radio 100 , many sympathizers of the left-wing radical scene were mobilized, but many onlookers also went to the area.

Barricades - including construction vehicles and parked cars - were erected and set alight throughout the area. Great barricades burned at every corner of Oranienstrasse , defended by people throwing stones. Even Molotov cocktails and slingshots came here used. Fire trucks of the Berlin fire brigade trying to put out the fires were attacked. In one of these incidents, the crew of a fire engine fled , which was then also set on fire and burned out.

Over thirty shops were looted , including branches of large chain stores and small retailers . The looting of a branch of the Berlin supermarket chain Bolle at the Görlitzer Bahnhof underground station attracted particular attention. Following the looting, the Bolle supermarket was set on fire, burned down completely and collapsed. However, according to the fire brigade, there was no risk to the surrounding residential buildings. It was only years later that it became known that the supermarket was not set on fire by members of the autonomous scene, but by a pyromaniac who, according to his own statements, had not noticed the riots and only happened to pass the supermarket after it had been looted.

The Görlitzer Bahnhof underground station , a center of unrest, was set on fire. Hundreds of people drummed on the cast-iron struts of the elevated railway for hours to make noise. The station had to be closed for several weeks due to the damage.

The police put an end to the violence

Two factors contributed to the end of the rioting by the police: alcohol and fatigue . The looting of the drinks shelves meant that many actors were completely drunk. Between two and three in the morning on May 2, 1987, the police launched a counter-attack. Using water cannons and evacuation vehicles, they advanced against the burning barricades and the remaining people. The area of ​​the Kottbusser Tor , which is difficult to keep for the autonomous people due to its vastness , could be pacified as well as Adalbertstrasse and Oranienstrasse. The resistance at Görlitzer Bahnhof and Lausitzer Platz also gradually collapsed.

Over a hundred people were injured and 47 people were arrested. Among them was Norbert Kubat , who committed suicide in prison on the night of May 25th to 26th after he was picked up by civil investigators while hitchhiking on Skalitzer Straße on the morning of May 2nd and taken into custody. In response to the suicide, there was an arson attack on the Bilka branch on Kottbusser Bridge that night , and on May 28, a funeral march with around 1,500 participants took place.

Reactions

As a state reaction to the riots, the special unit for special situations and operational training (EbLT) of the Berlin police was set up. This was given special equipment for street fighting in order to be able to make “evidence-securing arrests” in the event of violent demonstrative actions and to be able to act offensively in the center of the action. However, this was heavily criticized after a few uses. She was accused of disproportionate actions against demonstration participants from the politically alternative spectrum, the media public, and state institutions. It was then dissolved in January 1989.

The interpretation of the events was controversial within the autonomous movement: “The assessments fluctuated between the enthusiasm for having kept the police out of the neighborhood for so long and the fact that so many people took part in the revolt, and the opinion that it was were completely depoliticized actions. ”Alcohol abuse, sexist line- ups, looting of small shops and endangering other people were criticized. “While some autonomists approved of the revolt by and large and explained the negative phenomena with the fact that people with their entire socialization could not change overnight and that the subjectivity of people in the revolt was an expression of the social condition, others valued the revolt as 'Assholes Revolt' without any political background. "

May 1st, 1988

Due to the negative experiences with a “revolutionary bloc” within the May Day demonstration of the DGB and the positive experiences of a mobilization within the “own neighborhood”, in 1988 members of the autonomous movement created a spatially and politically independent so-called revolutionary 1. May demonstration organized by the districts of Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Under the motto Out on the revolutionary May 1st and the quote from Rosa Luxemburg "The revolution is great, everything else is quark", over 6,000 people were mobilized in advance despite police countermeasures. While the demonstration was peaceful, after the street festival on Lausitzer Platz there were clashes between the police and demonstrators. In retrospect, there was massive criticism of the police, especially the EbLT, which was accused of disproportionate violence. It was pointed out, among other things, that three police officers who observed the operation were themselves victims of attacks by law enforcement officers and sustained minor injuries. The riots are said to have been determined even more than in 1987 by young people, tourists and drunks and not by autonomous people.

May 1st 1989

In 1989, the first red-green Senate in Berlin tried to defuse May 1st through political and police restraint. Both the controversial EbLT and the political department of the public prosecutor's office had been dissolved in advance. However, the mood within the left-wing radical movement was heated up by the hunger strike of the RAF prisoners and the arrest of two Berliners on charges of membership in the militant women's group Die Amazons . In addition, a fundamental rejection of a “red-green administered state apparatus” was emphasized. On the night of May 1st, a building at Oranienstrasse  192 was occupied and two shops were looted. There were water cannons used by the police and 16 arrests. However, the police said they would not vacate the occupied house for the time being. On the Revolutionary May 1st demonstration the next day about 10,000 people participated. The police were very cautious during the demonstration. Even after several erotic shops were destroyed during the demonstration , a supermarket was looted, a dumpster was set on fire and another department store was looted, the police confined themselves to a massive trellis .

After the demonstration was over and the participants moved in large numbers to the street festival on Lausitzer Platz, there were also clashes there. At first the police held back and only asked by loudspeaker to stop the pelting with stones, but then cleared the street festival using tear gas and water cannons. The intensity of the subsequent riot even exceeded that of May 1, 1987. Estimates then spoke of over 1,500 people who are said to have participated in the riots. At times even larger police units were included, who felt compelled to throw stones themselves, since otherwise, according to their own statements, they would only have been able to shoot. In contrast to the two previous years, the violence was hardly directed against businesses, but specifically against the police. Of the 1,600 police officers deployed, 346 were injured. The property damage was estimated at 1.5 million marks . The damage to 154 police vehicles alone amounted to 530,000 DM. The next day the BZ headlined : “Beirut ??? No, this is Berlin! "

The events were then discussed controversially within the autonomous movement and in some cases also criticized. The main topics were the break with the more liberal left, the meaning of the riots and the question of whether these could still be politically controlled or whether it was just about rampaging “male violence”. On May 10th, the police union organized a demonstration against Interior Senator Erich Pätzold's strategy of de-escalation and the violence on May 1st. It was later suspected that chief police director Heinz Ernst, who was close to the Republicans , had deliberately acted negligently in order to discredit Pätzold and his de-escalation strategy .

May 1st 1990

May 1, 1990 was marked by the reunification of the two German states and the resulting nationalism . The motto of the revolutionary May Day demonstration also testified to this : “Better to take to the streets than home to the Reich!” At the same time, the events of 1989 weighed on the preparations as a mortgage. Prior to this, there was negative media coverage against the left-wing radical scene. The left movement tried to counteract this situation with close coordination between the organization of the street festival and the demonstration as well as political action days in advance of this.

About 12,000 people took part in the demonstration. In addition, another demonstration took place in East Berlin with 2,000 participants. In contrast to 1989, the demonstration was largely peaceful. In Berlin-Neukölln , however, several people were injured when the demonstration was shot at with an air rifle from a residential building . Although the street festival was forbidden, it was also peaceful. Despite, or perhaps because of, the massive appearance of the police, who had 3,800 officers on duty, there were not significant clashes until the evening. In terms of their intensity and duration, however, these were not comparable with those of previous years. At an estimated 500 people, participation was significantly below that of the previous year. While Interior Senator Pätzold credited his concept of "de-escalation and presence" with the relatively peaceful course, the autonomous scene in the behavior of the police was seen as the trigger for the riots. As in previous years, disproportionate police force was criticized. Interior Senator Erich Pätzold had to apologize publicly for an attack by police officers against two press photographers and a camera team from the SFB . Among other things, the AStA of the Technical University made the media jointly responsible for the shots at the demonstration due to their reporting in the run-up to May 1st. Here parallels were drawn to the murder of Rudi Dutschke . The Autonomists rated the day as a success, as both the demonstration and the street festival could be carried through and the number of demonstrators had continued to rise.

1990s

May 1, 2001 in Kreuzberg on Mariannenplatz
Police presence at the Görlitzer Bahnhof underground station, May 1, 2004
Banner for the 1pm demonstration 2007 in Oranienstrasse
During the riots on May 1, 2009 at Kottbusser Tor

The revolutionary May Day demonstrations in 1991, 1992 and 1993 were shaped by conflicts over the East-West relationship and attitudes towards Stalinist and Marxist-Leninist groups. The conflict over the East-West relationship was particularly focused on the question of the route: while in 1991 and 1993 the demonstration led from Kreuzberg to the East Berlin districts (1991 to Friedrichshain ; 1993 to Prenzlauer Berg ), the demonstration took place in 1992 through the western districts of Kreuzberg and Neukölln and the eastern district of Mitte .

The conflict between undogmatic-autonomous groups and the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary International Movement (RIM) escalated. During the three years there were physical confrontations in which some people were seriously injured and the RIM loudspeaker van was destroyed. While the RIM was still able to participate in the demonstration in 1991 and 1992, it was pushed out of the demonstration after a short time in 1993. Despite these conflicts, between 10,000 and 15,000 people took part in the Revolutionary May Day demonstrations over the three years. In 1994 the conflict finally led to the collapse of the revolutionary May Day: While the RIM has carried out an independent demonstration at 1 p.m. on Oranienplatz with 1,000–2,000 participants every year since then, undogmatic, autonomous groups in 1994 and 1995 did not organize any demonstrations. Instead, in 1994 the Kreuzberg fun party Kreuzberg Patriotic Democrats / Realistic Center (KPD / RZ) organized a demonstration in the evening under the motto “Against nocturnal disturbance of the peace and senseless violence”, in which 2,500 people took part. At Easter 1995 the autonomy congress was held in Berlin as a reaction to the crisis of the revolutionary May 1st .

A revival or revitalization of the revolutionary May Day was carried out in 1996 in particular by the Antifascist Action Berlin (AAB). Because of the conflicts at the beginning of the 1990s, the undogmatic-autonomous spectrum organized its own Revolutionary May Day demonstration separately from the RIM . Between 8,000 and 15,000 people regularly took part in this in the following years. In 1996 and 1998 it led through the East Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, at that time a popular residential area of ​​the radical left. In the other years it began in Kreuzberg and partly ended in Mitte. In 1998 the start of the demonstration was moved to 6 p.m. for the first time. The reason was to enable participation in the actions against the Nazi rally on May 1st in Leipzig . Since then it has taken place regularly at 6 p.m.

In 1999, anti-conflict teams made up of specially trained police officers were used for the first time to de-escalate the situation . The concept proved to be successful and was later adopted for other events and in other federal states.

Since 2000

In 2001 the May Day Revolutionary Demonstration at 6 p.m. was banned by the police for the first and only time so far. After the demonstration ended at 1 p.m., there were several spontaneous elevations in Kreuzberg. The evacuation of the street festival on Mariannenplatz led to fierce street battles in the evening. As early as 1998 and 2000, parts of the route were prohibited by law.

As a reaction to the events of 2001, an alliance around the FU professor Peter Grottian proposed the concept “Denk Mai Neu” in 2002. This envisaged having “a big festival with discussion, information and cultural events on all street corners” in SO 36. At the same time, the police should withdraw completely from the area. The plans met with heavy criticism from part of the radical left. The participation of the AAB in the concept led to the split in the preparatory group for the Revolutionary May Day Demonstration at 6 p.m. As a result - in addition to the 1 p.m. demonstration - two demonstrations took place. Also in 2003 there were two separate demonstrations as a result of the split in the AAB.

Since 2003 the police have tried to counteract riots by promoting alternative events. This approach is part of the Aha concept , first implemented in 1999 , which among other things supports the annual Kreuzberg street festival Myfest . The Myfest takes place in the traditional center of the riots in SO 36 and is supposed to nip them in the bud by the presence of tens of thousands of peaceful visitors, apparently with some success in recent years. The intensity of the violence has decreased significantly. Nevertheless, there are still at least smaller riots around the Myfest every year. The organizers of the May Day Revolutionary Demonstrations criticize the Myfest as an instrument to pacify social conflicts and to stop the radical left demonstrations. Spatial overlaps between the demonstrations and the Myfest resulted in some sections of the registered demonstration routes being banned. In 2005 and 2006, the demonstrations at 6 p.m. were canceled by the organizers because they considered the spatial requirements to be unacceptable. As a result, spontaneous demonstrations formed in both years. Since 2012, in the run-up to the 6 p.m. demonstration, a publicly mobilized but not registered demonstration has been held regularly by Myfest at the starting point of the 6 p.m. demonstration.

Since 2007 registered revolutionaries have been taking place on May 1st demonstrations again. The number of participants rose continuously and in 2014 reached its highest level to date with 19,000 (information provided by the police) and 25,000 (information provided by the organizers). At the same time, the intensity of the excesses is continuously decreasing. The last time there were massive attacks on the police from the demonstration was in 2009.

On May 1, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany , several thousand people gathered without a permit. They followed a call by the Revolutionary May Day Initiative . 5,000 police officers blocked demonstrations with roadblocks. There were scuffles between the police and the demonstrators, the detonation of pyrotechnics, minor injuries and 50 arrests.

Classification in other left-wing extremist activities on May 1st

In other German cities too, left-wing radicals are holding revolutionary May Day demonstrations or organizing a revolutionary block in the DGB's May Day demonstrations. The EuroMayDay has been taking place in Berlin since 2006 . By building on this European movement of the precarious, the organizers hope for a modernization of left-wing extremist activities on Labor Day . The first EuroMayDay within Germany took place in Hamburg in 2005 .

Since 1998 at the latest, the counter-mobilization to right-wing extremist demonstrations by the NPD and its youth organization Young National Democrats (JN) or the Free Comradeships , which have also been trying to occupy Labor Day politically since 1992 (increasingly since 1996/97), has become an important field of activity in particular the (autonomous) anti- fascist movement. In 2008, for example, one focus of left-wing extremist activities on May 1 was preventing a neo-Nazi march in Hamburg . The revolutionary May Day demonstration of the undogmatic spectrum has therefore only taken place at 6 p.m. since 1998 in order to enable participation in both the anti-fascist protests and the demonstration.

literature

Movies

Web links

Commons : First May in Berlin  - collection of images and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c History of Kreuzberg May 1st. (PDF; 967 kB) In: Mai-Zeitung. April 2005, p. 4 , accessed May 1, 2009 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Chronicle of the events in Berlin from May 1, 1987 to June 18, 1987. In: squat.net. P. 1 , accessed May 1, 2009 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h The story of the revolutionary May 1st in Berlin. In: nadir.org. Retrieved May 1, 2009 .
  4. ↑ a b Frauke Lehmann, Norbert Meyerhöfer: I wish it crashes like it used to . In: Dieter Rucht: May 1, 2002. Political demonstration rituals . Opladen 2003, p. 58
  5. ↑ Plutonia Plarre: "I was the fire devil". In: Spiegel Online . May 1, 2007, accessed May 1, 2009 .
  6. ↑ Chronicle of the events in Berlin from May 1, 1987 to June 18, 1987. (No longer available online.) In: squat.net. P. 2 , archived from the original on April 25, 2009 ; Retrieved May 1, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / squat.net
  7. ↑ a b Thomas Schultz, Almut Gross: Die Autonomen. Origins, development and profile of the autonomous movement . Hamburg 1997, p. 80
  8. ↑ Geronimo: Fire and Flame. On the history of the autonomous . 1st edition. Edition ID archive, Berlin / Amsterdam 1990, ISBN 3-89408-004-3 , p. 93, 183 f . ( nadir.org [PDF; accessed May 1, 2009]).
  9. ↑ Chugging Trabi . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 1989 ( online ).
  10. ^ Lehmann, Meyerhöfer 2003: 61
  11. ↑ See Autonomy Congress. Viewpoints - provocations - theses of the undogmatic left movements . Munster 1997
  12. ^ The story of the revolutionary May Day in Berlin. In: Nadir , 1998.
  13. ^ Call for counter-activities to the Nazi rally on May 1st in Leipzig. In: Nadir .
  14. ^ Slaughter festival in Kreuzberg . In: taz , May 2, 2001
  15. ↑ Something new every year . Jungle World , February 27, 2002
  16. ↑ Fewer police officers for more demonstrations . In: Berliner Zeitung , April 30, 2002
  17. ↑ A question of division. Jungle World, May 14, 2003
  18. ↑ Jörn Hasselmann: Police "satisfied and happy" after a large-scale operation. In: tagesspiegel.de . May 2, 2014, accessed August 25, 2017 .
  19. ↑ Claudia Wrobel, Martin Dolzer: [Crisis in focus], young world from May 3, 2014
  20. ↑ Police "satisfied and happy" after a major operation .
  21. ↑ Jörn Hasselmann: May 1st in Berlin: Politics instead of cobblestones Tagesspiegel, April 27th, 2014. Philipp Wittrock: May riot in Berlin: Riots shake Kreuzberg . Spiegel Online , May 2, 2009
  22. ↑ Thousands of people move close together through Kreuzberg. May 1st in Berlin. rbb24.de, May 2, 2020, accessed on May 2, 2020 .
  23. ↑ More than 1000 people in unauthorized protests. Demos on May 1st in Berlin. faz.net, May 2, 2020, accessed May 2, 2020 .