Police raided more than 20 apartments, collectives, and projects around Germany in the early hours of December 5 in a new wave of repression following their unsuccessful attempts to brutally suppress demonstrations against the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg. The “Soko Schwarzer Block,“ the special police commission called “black bloc“ that was formed after the G20, officially announced that the searches pertained to an incident during the G20 at Rondenbarg trailer park—in which the police trapped and attacked a crowd, injuring many people. Solidarity actions and demonstrations responding to the raids took place immediately in Hannover, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Hamburg, Flensburg, Göttingen, and Berlin.

A demonstration immediately responding to the raids in Göttingen.

Fabio, a person who spent four months in prison, became a symbol of the scandalous lies that the authorities have been spreading about the police attack at Rondenbarg. During the attack, police kicked 14 people down a fence, screaming “That’s your breakfast, antifa swine!” All of them sustained serious injuries, including broken bones. Since the police video was published by a TV station, we can all compare the different versions. History is made by those in power and what we witness right now is the fabrication of truth. The truth that the police and the judges are trying to promote is not compatible with the experiences that thousands of people share of being charged without provocation, brutally beaten up, water-cannoned, and pepper-sprayed during the summit.

The official charge is “Landfriedensbruch,“ breach of the public peace. But even according to the police spokesperson, the searches were not carried out to find evidence to use against people participating in the demonstration. The searches were officially made to find out more about the structure of the protests and the organizers of the riots. In other words, the explicit goal of the police is to suppress dissent via violence and ongoing intimidation.

The intention of the police is to frame the people they attacked as rioters. But they also raided the apartments of union members. Consequently, even mainstream journalists called the searches a PR bluff. The act that the arrestees are accused of is nothing more than being part of a demonstration from which stones and fireworks were thrown. The police have admitted that they did not expect to identify anyone who had thrown anything.

To identify the priorities of the German state, which cracks down as violently as possible on popular protest movements while creating the conditions for fascists to organize and even violate the law, we should bear in mind a statistic that was publicized shortly before these raids: some 500 fascists currently have open warrants for their arrest that have not been carried out, and the number is increasing every year.

Furthermore, police have announced their intention to open cases against 3000 people before the end of the year in retaliation for participation in the G20 protests. So this is just the beginning.

Police video from their attack on demonstrators at Rondenbarg. Another police video shows a great deal more police violence, but no violence from demonstrators.

The corporate media portrayed Fabio’s courageous statement at his trial as naïve, but surprisingly, even mainstream outlets admitted that we have to question democracy itself as it is obviously not able to solve the problems of growing financial inequality and resource scarcity.

We should encrypt our computers, tidy up our rooms, and share our experiences with each other about the police looking at our photos, our mail, and our underwear. We can talk about how we are anxious and different ways to support each other. We should organize solidarity actions. But above all, we should use this opportunity to speak about our experiences and visions of a world without police.

A solidarity demonstration in Flensburg.

Additional Resources

Germany in Winter: About the Censoring of Indymedia linksunten by the Federal Ministry of the Interior

United We Stand: Solidarity campaign against G20 repression

Further details about the raids

Our full report on the G20 protests in Hamburg; a German version of this text is available here

Photographs from the raids and solidarity actions in Göttingen

Police press statement on the raids

Voices of people affected by the raids