German Police, Leftists Clash on May Day

BERLIN (Reuters) - German riot police waged pitched May Day battles with leftists in Berlin on Saturday night after masked anarchists hurled bottles and stones at them.

Eyewitnesses said hundreds of police in riot gear moved quickly against crowds of demonstrators in the western district of Kreuzberg after protesters threw bottles, stones and other objects, including signal rockets.

Several cars were also tipped over and at least one overturned Mercedes was seen burning. Several bank windows were also smashed.

Police fired tear gas and there was an unknown number of injuries reported among the police and demonstrators. One man appeared to be unconscious as he was dragged away by a fellow demonstrator from a street strewn with broken bottles.

more.............

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5007710

Happens each year on Walpurgis and Mayday. This year was *very* harmless, no looting, very few burning cars...
I live in an area where usually Walpurgis riots take place, but not so this year. The whole work of moving the car to an safe area was for naught ;-) .

Anyway, the reason for the peace this year was IMHO the massive police deployment. There where several thousand additional policemen in town to guard the OECD conference, Colin Powell, Zapatero, Katsav, the EU enlargement festival - the whole city was green and it wasn't for the trees. Berlin made the additional officers stay for Mayday, resulting in the biggest police deployment in post-war Germany's history.

It should be noted that the riots have no political background. They try to transmit the image of 60s protesters, but that is purely show. Most simply want to throw stones at the police and vandalize.
A notable exception were the numerous protesters against the neo-nazi rallies today.

Wall where no one wanted to live? So it became home to Turks and Asozialen? those living 'alternativ' lifestyles?

What happened after the Wall came down and unification occurred? Didn't then lots of companies want to build headquarters here and rents went sky-high?

What lead to the social situation in Kreuzberg is unclear, the three "problem" districts are Neukölln, Kreuzberg and Wedding. Kreuzberg has a certain ring to, making it the most famous and most interesting of these three.


Anyway, Kreuzberg is still by now way a high-rent area, but there are Federal Ministers and corporate managers living in there. It is still a blue-collar area, with a very large Turkish minority (leading to some of the best food stores restaurants).

The rents in the Kreuzberg district: green means cheap (€2-€4 per square meter), blue means normal

For comparison, the Charlottenburg district (guess what red means ;-) ):



Most HQs and embassies are in the central Mitte district, but riverside locations in Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain are getting more popular - the city gives them away almost for free

n/t