Holding the Line

There was supposed to be a march for the Rote Flora. Thirty minutes in, they shut it down.

The Rote Flora is an autonomous center squatted in an old theater up in Sternschanze—art, music, meetings, everything that doesn’t fit Hamburg’s official version of itself. It’s been under pressure for years, and every time the city leans on it, thousands show up to push back. That day it was eight thousand. Three thousand came ready for actual confrontation. The rest of us were just holding space.

Once they declared the assembly dissolved, the cops moved. Small units would peel off and charge into the crowd, and people would push back hard enough to send them retreating. Then they’d come back. Hours of that. Pepper spray hanging in the air so thick you could taste it. People going down. Kids getting grabbed by three, four cops at once. Trash cans, benches, whatever was loose. No strategy—just reaction. Come at us, we don’t move, you come back harder.

The Reeperbahn usually feels loose and young. That night it was occupied territory. Restaurants locked shut with people trapped inside who just wanted to eat dinner. Blood on the street. Someone next to me bleeding, and I’m standing there knowing this line will break. The cops keep reforming, coming back meaner. My eyes are burning. I stay anyway.

I left before they grabbed me. I still don’t really know what I thought I was proving, standing there. But I know why I was angry about leaving.