Berlin stays calm: “All peaceful” at Brandenburg Gate as water cannon sits idle
Unlike Hamburg and Cologne, the Gen Z protest in Berlin passed without major incidents. Police counted about 4,200 people at one point, while a second rally drew only around 300.
Symbolic image · Photo: Leonhard Lenz / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (cropped and resized)
The Gen Z protest in Berlin was largely peaceful, police said. At the Brandenburg Gate, police counted about 4,200 participants in the early afternoon and later reported around 2,700. Organizers had registered 10,000. “All peaceful, no incidents,” police spokesman Jörn Iffländer told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
Speakers on stage spoke of a “revolution of youth.” Topics included a possible return of military conscription, teacher shortages and young people's mental health. Officials of the AfD's youth organization and a far-right media activist observed the rally.
A second, separately registered demonstration under the slogan “Gen Z hat genug” (Gen Z has had enough) at Rosenthaler Platz drew around 300 people in the early evening, according to police estimates, down from some 500 expected. About 1,500 officers were deployed, and a water cannon on standby had not been used by early evening.