Gen Z regelt Calls for New Protests as Frankfurt Violence Sparks Debate Over Blame

On Sunday morning, police were walking the streets of downtown Frankfurt, guarding shops whose windows had been smashed the night before. Parts of the city center were cordoned off. A police spokesperson described the property damage as considerable, and said the looted stores themselves needed protection.

The night followed a day of demonstrations organized by a group calling itself Gen Z regelt, roughly "Gen Z takes charge." It had planned protests in 34 cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne and Munich. Its demands: more funding for schools, addiction treatment and psychotherapy, and measures against rising living costs. It also opposes mandatory military service and expanded government surveillance. In Berlin on Saturday, spokesperson Lina Friedrich said the group was fighting for peace and freedom rather than war and coercion, and for a fairer distribution of the burden. By the organizers' count, 100,000 people took part, though they said estimates for six to eight cities would come later.

After dark, the picture changed, particularly in Frankfurt and Cologne. Roman Poseck, interior minister of Hesse, said more than 100 officers were injured in Frankfurt, one seriously, with up to 1,300 on duty from Saturday night into Sunday morning. Seventeen stores were damaged and five looted. Police detained 54 people, all between 13 and 29. Of more than 8,000 people who took part in the Frankfurt protests, authorities estimated 1,000 to 1,500 were violent troublemakers.

How to describe those people has become the argument. Poseck said they were predominantly from a migrant background, spoke of an enormous potential for violence among left-wing extremists and violence-prone young people, and said there must be "no false taboos." He also acknowledged that German citizens made up the vast majority of those detained. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, of the Christian Social Union, told Bild that violent left-wing groups and troublemakers from migrant communities hijacked the peaceful demonstrations. He did not elaborate on the identities of those in custody. He promised that rioters and looters would be identified and face serious penalties, and credited the police strategy of strong visible presence and decentralized deployment with preventing the excesses seen in Paris. In France, protests continued largely peacefully for a third weekend after riots and looting on October 17.

In Cologne, state Interior Minister Herbert Reul said left-wing extremists hijacked the protests, adding that people who throw rocks and firecrackers at police and cover their faces have no political agenda. Hesse's Premier Boris Rhein said he was shocked by the violence, that it would not remain without consequences, and that the attackers placed themselves outside society.

Police accounts complicate a simple link between the protests and the riots. Andreas Rosskopf, chairman of the police union representing the Federal Police, told the Rheinische Post the demonstrations were very peaceful and blamed autonomous, in some cases masked, individuals. In Cologne, a police spokeswoman said the looting there was more likely tied to Halloween celebrations than to the aftermath of the protests. Gen Z regelt, which had explicitly called for peaceful protest, said it had no influence on what happened after the demonstrations.

The organizers are not stepping back. They have called for new demonstrations on November 14, to keep pressure on the government. Whether those protests, again planned across 34 cities, pass peacefully will show how the argument over blame plays out.