Ministers clash over causes of violence at Germany's youth protests

Tensions erupted after youth-led protests across Germany over the weekend turned violent in several cities, prompting ministers to point at both left-wing extremists and people from migrant backgrounds as culprits while others warned against broad generalisations.

Government figures split on causes

On Sunday Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt blamed the unrest on "violent left-wing groups and troublemakers from migrant communities." The protests, called by the initiative "Gen Z regelt," drew tens of thousands of mostly peaceful participants demanding more school funding, measures to offset rising living costs and stronger climate policies.

Education Minister Karin Prien said the disturbances in several cities raise questions about how to improve integration for new migrants. Prien agreed that the rallies had been "for the most part peaceful," but added that there were violent excesses "from far-left groups" and "also from others who likely also come from migrant backgrounds."

Prien warned that the point of noting migrants' origins was not to "incite intolerance, which would be wrong also politically," but rather to confront the reality and seek reasons for why people resort to violence: "If they come from migrant backgrounds, then that must concern us and we must look into the causes."

Not all senior coalition figures supported that line. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius questioned the usefulness of grouping people by migration background, asking: "What are 'migrant groups'? Are those people who have lived in Germany for a third generation already and are German citizens? Where do we stop making a difference? I think that leads in the wrong direction."

Police reported clashes with officers and acts of vandalism in Frankfurt and Cologne during the evening, while in Berlin bottles and firecrackers were thrown and in Hamburg construction barricades were set alight. In several cities police used water cannons. Early on Monday protesters blocked entrances to a Hamburg university building with construction fences and waste containers; police said three demonstrations took place at the site.

A masked activist speaking to a news agency argued the protest was meant to highlight that one in three euros now goes to the arms industry rather than to education. Prominent climate activist Luisa Neubauer urged the Gen Z organisers to sharpen their demands: "It's simply easier to build pressure when you can focus your demands," she said, while also acknowledging the movement's difficulty in prioritising amid multiple crises: "This time tells us there are crises everywhere; we don't even know where to start."

Photo: press material from the event