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May Day clashes in Hamburg and Berlin

Clashes between far-left demonstrators and police overnight on Saturday in Hamburg and Berlin left at least six officers and a firefighter injured, according to police. But the capital was quieter overall this year than in 2009.

Published: 2 May 2010 09:31 CEST
May Day clashes in Hamburg and Berlin
Photo: DPA

After mostly peaceful demonstrations against neo-Nazi marches during the day on Saturday, rioting broke out at night as police used water cannons and batons against left-wing and anarchist protesters.

In Hamburg, police used water cannons after demonstrators began throwing rocks and bottles at officers. Some in the far-left crowd also looted a drugstore, broke windows at several businesses and vandalised two bank branches. Cars were overturned and barricades lit on fire.

Police responded with a baton charges to especially violent groups of youth. Five officers were injured along with a firefighter.

The violence was concentrated in Hamburg’s Schanzenviertel neighbourhood and police operations to calm the area lasted until early Sunday morning. Police report that 21 people were arrested and 8 taken into custody. Some 1,200 officers from the city’s own forces and the state and federal police were deployed.

CLICK HERE FOR A GALLERY OF PHOTOS OF MAY DAY IN BERLIN.

In Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, police also used water cannons and baton charges against rampaging demonstrators. Youth from the left-wing scene threw rocks, bottles and firecrackers at police, injuring one.

Despite the clashes, police reported that this May Day in Berlin was more peaceful than in 2009, when rioting left 500 police injured and resulted in close to 300 people being arrested. This year police attempted to remove troublemakers from the crowd early.

Police reported no serious May Day-related violence in other German cities.

BERLIN

Berlin offers to give away villa built for Nazi propaganda chief Goebbels

A lakeside villa built for Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels is being offered up for free to anyone willing to take on the daunting task of being responsible for its upkeep.

Published: 3 May 2024 14:41 CEST
Berlin offers to give away villa built for Nazi propaganda chief Goebbels

The Villa Bogensee, which stands on a 17-hectare plot of land just outside Berlin, was conceived as a country bolthole for Goebbels in 1936.

The Nazi PR chief is said to have used the house for his illicit liaisons with actresses right up until April 1945, just days before he and his wife committed suicide in a Berlin bunker.

The villa has been unused since 2000 and has fallen into disrepair, with the city-state of Berlin struggling to find a new owner to take it over.

Stefan Evers, Berlin’s finance minister, told a local government meeting on Thursday the building was threatened with demolition.

“I am offering anyone who would like to take over the site to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Evers said.

The property is located in Brandenburg but neither the state surrounding Berlin nor the federal government are interested in such a ‘generous gift'” he said.

Germany has long struggled with the question of what to do with former Nazi sites as many are too complex to demolish, but leaving them intact risks them becoming magnets for a new wave of far-right extremists.

After the end of World War II, the Goebbels villa was briefly used as a military hospital before being handed over to a youth organisation which ran an academy there.

The sprawling villa still has charming original features such as wood panelling, parquet flooring and chandeliers, but the cost of renovating it would likely run into millions of euros.

Evers said he was still hoping for a new proposal from the state of Brandenburg to take over the villa.

“However, should this once again come to nothing, as in previous decades, then the state of Berlin will have no other option than to carry out the demolition,” he said.

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