Germany, Hamburg: Heaviest Mayday Riots since 30 Years!

 http://de.indymedia.org/2008/05/215364.shtml (german)

 http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=UqiBgApoHk0

Hamburg, germany, 1st of may 2008. 1,000 nazis marched in through Barmbek district, protected by the police, while 10,000 antifascists protested and attempted to stop the Nazi demonstration.
the police violence against peaceful blockades sparked the heaviest riots Hamburg has seen since the 80's.

the anti-nazi actions consisted of rallies, concerts, barricades on the street and on railroad tracks (which actually delayed the arrival of the neo-nazis), and a protest march.
when about 8 000 people blocked the starting point of the neo-nazi demonstration, the police, instead of canceling the neo-nazi march, decided to attack the blockade with water cannons, pepper spray and truncheons.
the organizers of the anti-nazi demonstration decided to cancel the march at this point. right afterwards, the demonstration was attacked again by thecops for standing on a crossroad which turned out to be part of the alternative route for the fascist demonstration.

in the meantime, the nazi demonstration didn't receive as much attention from the police as it should have. most of the police force was engaged in fighting antifascist, while the nazis could attack people on the side of their demonstration, among them a couple of journalists, without the police giving them too much trouble.

on the nazi route, the water cannons were in permanent operation to keep off protesters and clear burning barricades. a spontaneous demonstration of 3 000 antifascists was stopped by water cannons, close to the S-Bahnhof Ohlsdorf (a train station), which was the end point of the neo-nazi march.
when the neo-nazis arrived,they were welcomed with flying stones. The situation almost turned into a street battle with stones been thrown on both sides.
When neo-nazi leader Jürgen Rieger started to sing the first verse of the Deutschlandlied (german national hymn), which has been illegal since 1945 (only the third verse is legal), the concluding rally was immediately canceled. the police attempted to arrests Rieger, which failed due to the resistance of his fellow neo-nazis, who fought back the police. With massive pepper spray use, the police managed to move the neo-nazis into the train station. But their departure proofed to be difficult, since a lot of their buses were destroyed or left without them. A number of later skirmishes on subways and train stations were reported.



main article:  http://de.indymedia.org/2008/05/215364.shtml


related indymedia posts:

Riot in front of the Rote Flora.
later that night, in front of the autonomous culture center Rote Flora, a fight between kids and the police broke out. 4 people were arrested. These Quarrels are common, especially after big demonstrations, and have been more frequent since the G8 protests last year.
 http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=UqiBgApoHk0

Neo-nazi identified in an assault on antifascists. Siegfried Borcher, called SS-Sigi by his mates, lives in Dortmund. you can find a picture of him here:
 http://de.indymedia.org/2008/05/215334.shtml

200 Nazis riot in the Bremer HBF.
On the way back from Hamburg, 200 neo-nazis assaulted everybody at the train station who looked remotely left-wing. the police watched and did nothing for a long time. as the finally decided to arrest one of the fascists, they were attacked by his kameraden. stones, bottles and firecrackers flew through the air, and the cops decided to let the arrestee go.
 http://de.indymedia.org/2008/05/215405.shtml

nazi postings on indymedia.de,
during the demonstration, several postings appeared, claiming that an antifascist was killed at protests. since no reliable sources could be found, these posts were deleted by the indy-moderators. In a later post, the name of the supposed victim was given, an antifascist journalist, who has been defamed by nazi newspapers in the past.
The antifascist journalist enjoys best health. These postings are believed to have been launched to stir up violence at the protest.
 http://de.indymedia.org/2008/05/215580.shtml



mainstream media reports:

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7379615.stm

 http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,551037,00.html

 http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3305672,00.html


a lot of these reports miss the fact, that Hamburg has a long history of police violence, especially since 2001, when a coalition of the newly formed ultra right-wing Schill party and the conservative CDU, (chirsitian democratic union) took over the government. If you just only think about the Bambule protests 2002-2003 or the student protests in the last 4 years, this kind of militant resistance come as no surprise.