Most of the world knows May 1st, or May Day, as International Workers Day. Not wanting anything to do with anything remotely communist, this holiday has long been suspended in the USA, transplanted to September 1st so that everyone can milk one last long weekend out of the Summer and at that same time, not giving the appearance of being a Pinko. For the last 20 years in Berlin, May Day has been a day of street festivals, music, and food that turns into a night of broken glass, rock throwing, car burning, night-sticking, and tear-gassing as leftist radicals vent their dissatisfaction with the capitalist course of their now unified homeland, and the gradual gentrification of the city of Berlin. They would prefer Berlin to remain grungy, cheap, and unwelcoming of tourists. May Day is also paired with a German folk-legend, which says that on the night of April 30, the witches dance in the Harz Mountains of Germany, once the site of pan-European pagan celebrations, and is still considered to be the spiritual center of the German people. 
This riotous behavior mostly happens in the districts of Kreuzberg and Neuköln in the southern part of the city. The fun began Saturday, as I walked back to our building, turned a corner, and met approximately 100 police officers dressed in black riot gear in preparation for a march through the once edgy but increasingly gentrified and family-oriented Prenzlauerberg neighborhood of the Pankow district where I live. In fact, the march went directly by our house, prompting Wolfram to take the care to a garage. This march was peaceful, which proved to be an omen of a year of declined violence. I headed to Kreuzberg on Sunday afternoon to meet up at a bar with a group of English-speaking Ex-pats and Germans looking to improve their English whom I've connected with via the internet to watch the madness unfold as night fell. 
It truly was a gorgeous day for a riot. The streets were quiet in my neighborhood as I left and took the subway south. It became increasingly crowded as I drew nearer to my stop, and by the time I arrived we were packed very tight. Transit police eyeballed us as we left the station, occasionally searching bags for Molotov cocktails, and paying special attention to anyone wearing all black, a typical look for Berlin but one people know to avoid on May Day unless they're looking for trouble. I emerged from the subway station to find the streets to be packed but amiable. The air was thick with music and the delicious smoky flavor of grilled meat. I figured that the street vendors must make a killing off of the thousands of hungry police alone, standing by anxiously waiting for some action after a long Winter of pumping iron in preparation for their big day. Most of your German police are sporty young guys fresh out of the army, and while they don't have the ridiculous rights and protections of your typical power-tripping Dirty Harry-wannabe American cops, they are cut from the same cloth; the difference is they remember that they are Peace Officers and public servants, not "Law Enforcement." |
| The police continuously record everyone's faces. |
As night fell a handful of us left the bar looking for the commotion. I was disappointed that the Germans who usual start their riots with characteristic punctuality seemed to be beating around the bush, and it wasn't until 10 or 11 that we came across some contention. No burned cars or rock throwing where we were, but the streets were clogged and a core group of anarchist types starting holding their ground near the Kottbusser Tor subway station with the more half-hearted "reserves" doing their part. The riot police started coming in groups of 20-50 to clear the streets, and I myself was shoved out of the way by a police officer from behind as I took pictures and his unit moved in. Soon tear gas and pepper spray was being deployed, I was not close enough to the center to be effected by either but I could sure smell it in their air and my eyes were fairly read when I got home. After an hour of this back and forth the crowd seemed to lose it's conviction as the police became increasingly aggressive, sometimes surging in and making arrests, but always moving and pushing the crowd to prevent them from congregating anywhere for too long. Not wanting to navigate the packed night buses and conceding that I wouldn't have a picture of a burning car for the blog, I took the subway back around midnight before it stopped running. The first video below shows a pretty white cloud of tear gas as the crowd chants "Ganz Berlin hasst die Polizei!" (All Berlin hates the police!) and the second shows a contingent of police escorting an ambulance out of the area as the man you here in the background sarcastically says, "The police of Germany are the best in all the world, without you there is no country. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much Germany for the best police in the world."
I did feel a bit let down by the less destructive rioting this year, because the idea of yearly riots seems so interesting and enticing to someone from the US, where such a thing would be swiftly crushed and not allowed to happen again. What is also interesting is that the riots are also a spectator sport, and most of the people are out there to watch and only passively participate in the marches and riots, and to make sure the police don't overdo their suppression of them. In a country that has had the Nazi Gestapo and Communist Stasi in the past 70 years, there is a great deal of sensitivity to the abuses of the police. In some ways the May Day riots are like a play, where the Germans find a balance between their law-and-order and anarchist mentalities. Or maybe just get their disorderliness out of the way for a year, blowing off steam built up through the Winter like the witches of the Harz Mountains dancing the snow away and preparing for Spring.
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On a side note, I was very happy today when I found out that after almost ten years, Osama Bin Laden has finally been killed. I drank a toast to the lucky Navy Seal who got to pump that bastard full of lead and could not wipe the smile off my face for an hour or two. While I'm very happy to be in Germany, I wish I could have been teleported back to the USA for a day to celebrate the victory with my fellow citizens. Critics site the fact that it took ten years, but I don't care if it took twenty, what is important is that we showed resolve and patience, a willingness to hunt down those who would threaten our people with death and destruction no matter how long it takes. It is this perceived lack of resolve over the past few decades that has emboldened our enemies to action. I'm going to snuggle into bed tonight with a warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that murdering, woman-hating, demagogic high-jacker of planes and Islam is fish food.
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