Politicians in Berlin have expressed anger after demonstrators at a far-left rally threw bottles at police and burned rubbish bins. Clashes between police and protesters were also reported in Frankfurt and Hamburg.
Thousands of people descended on the streets of Berlin and other cities across Germany on Saturday for Labour Day demonstrations, with more than 20 protests in the capital alone.
Fears that this year’s May Day protests could see a return of violent street protests in the German capital proved unfounded as police were able to report a minimum of disruption at a left-wing demo.
From a police ‘no go’ area in the 1980s, May 1st in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district is now one of the city’s biggest parties. But an unauthorized march this year by protesters through the city’s Friedrichshain district may signal a return of the bad old times.
Protesters and revellers alike took to the streets of Deutschland on Tuesday. Despite a large police presence in some cities, the gatherings were largely peaceful.
Berlin police revealed on Monday they had discovered several pipe bombs along the route of a leftist May Day demonstration in the Kreuzberg district of the German capital – which could have caused a bloodbath.
Berlin and Hamburg saw their most peaceful May Days in years, authorities claimed on Tuesday. But the police were accused of "unbelievable brutality" as one anti-capitalist demonstration was broken up in the German capital.
The Berlin police force is preparing to break in its new high-tech water-cannon monster-truck for the annual May Day protests in the German capital, with demonstrations and clashes expected to begin on Monday night.
Authorities are investigating why two plain-clothes police officers were beaten and pepper-sprayed by their uniformed colleagues during May Day protests in Berlin.
Police arrested several people after left-wing extremists and the police clashed in the German capital late Sunday following peaceful May Day marches by tens of thousands in the city.
In the face of anticipated leftist violence at Sunday’s May Day demonstrations in Berlin, members of Angela Merkel’s conservatives have called for known anarchist troublemakers to be taken into custody as a preventive measure.
The anarchist uproar following the eviction of a Berlin squat in January could mean the city faces more leftist violence than usual during this year’s May Day demonstrations. Exberliner magazine's Anne-Lena Mösken spoke to a member of the leftist scene.
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.
A group of artists is offering a controversial take on Berlin’s traditional May Day riots this year, providing live audio for what they consider a mass political performance. But are they simply glorifying the violence?
A recent surge in politically motivated violence by leftist radicals has German authorities holding their breath ahead of May 1, the traditional day of worker protest. <b>David Wroe</b> reports on the simmering anger on the far left.
With riots expected at the annual May Day festivities in Berlin and elsewhere, Germany's centre-right coalition government bickered on Monday over whether harsher punishments should be enacted against those who attack police officers.
In the face of security gaps and overstretched police, the mounting threat of radical political violence could explode on the traditional protest day of May Day and possibly lead to deaths and hundreds of injuries, the head of the police union warned Thursday.
