Berlin Squatters Battle Police (1990)

Wed Nov 14, 1990

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Image: The Battle of Mainzer Strasse, with large groups of police gathered on the street

On this day in 1990, German squatters battled with approximately 1,500 heavily armed police officers who were attempting to evict squatters from a tenement neighborhood in eastern Berlin.

The officers went in with tear gas and water cannons and fought squatters for nearly six hours through a block-long stretch of Mainzer Strasse. Gangs of squatters on rooftops, some masked, bombarded police officers with cobblestones and gasoline bombs while the police retaliated with tear gas and water cannons.

According to the NY Times, the squatters, mostly from western Berlin and western Germany, had first fought with the police late Monday night, then constructed a veritable fortress throughout the area, digging deep ditches with a stolen excavator, stringing barbed wire and storing stones, gasoline bombs and railroad flares as weapons.

On the evening of November 14th, thousands of squatters and their supporters marched through Berlin to protest the action. The government claimed that at least 85 people, including 70 police officers, were injured, and 350 people were taken into custody.