Germany suffers the first acts of vandalism in the wave of European protests

The first large gathering in Germany of the recent European student protests brought together 120,000 people in 30 cities this Saturday, according to the organizing organization, Gen Z Regelt. The police halved the figure. The day passed without problems, until night fell. Seven large German municipalities suffered violent acts by rioters from whom Gen Z distanced itself. The Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt, blamed this Sunday “violent leftists and vandals of migrant origin.”

The worst scenes occurred in Frankfurt. After nine at night, multiple lootings took place in establishments on the city's main shopping street, including a weapons store. The clashes left 100 police officers injured and more than 50 people between the ages of 13 and 29 arrested. In Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart, Bremen and Nuremberg, attacks against law enforcement forces with the throwing of objects and pyrotechnics were reported. The total number of detainees throughout the country exceeds two hundred, many of them for remaining in areas that the police forced them to leave.

Dobrindt has singled out people of foreign origin after images of looting in Frankfurt by young people, many of them hooded, were released. “We have prevented the violent excesses that occur in Paris thanks to the police forces,” the minister assured the newspaper Bild: “The police operation, based on a massive presence and a decentralized deployment of forces, has proven to be a success.”

Police rounded up groups of protesters in areas where unauthorized protests were being held, as happened at Hamburg's central train station. A call to carry out acts of vandalism at the station, which had spread on social networks, ended with the arrest of 120 people.

Dobrindt is the visible face of the Bavarian Christian Social CSU in the German coalition government. The CSU is characterized by a tougher policy on security and migration compared to the other coalition partners in power, the CDU of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the Social Democrats of the SPD.

The Government had been preparing for this scenario for weeks, ever since the Gen Z demonstrations were called. The police were monitoring radical groups and potential sources of problems. Dobrindt presided over a control center day and night with the leadership of the federal police, coordinated with the authorities of the German länder.