Words: Negro Matapacos. Pictures: Emilie Anomalie, Ibrahim
Hussitenstraße has always been a sleepy street: there is one Späti, the Humboldthain park, some offices and a university campus. Before this year, it was rare to see more than five people on foot walking on the sidewalk.
Now, there is a constant police presence, with one of the side streets completely blocked off. The entire block containing the factory has gotten a new fence, which is topped with spirals of brand new barbed wire. At least three cops per corner have been told to stand around and look intimidating, glaring at everyone who dares to walk down the wrong side of the sidewalk. This is all ostensibly to make sure that no one disrupts Germany’s darling, Rheinmetall, as the company produces parts for weapons, right in the middle of the neighborhood.
Germany has declared that it will have Europe’s biggest and best army by 2039, and has recently published, “the first Military Strategy in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany […] It serves as a compass for the troops for the years to come. It describes the threat situation. It sets priorities and defines how the Bundeswehr ensures deterrence in the Alliance – and, in particular, how it fights when necessary.” Besides seeming suspiciously ChatGPT-adjacent, the strategy lays out how Germany, NATO and the “Allies” are already at war. It does this in order to justify the rapid siphoning of funds away from branches like unemployment, education, healthcare, and the arts to the German military.
This is the backdrop of the camp and demo that happened at the end of June, where people from across Berlin gathered to discuss and protest increasing militarization, and weapons production right in the middle of the city. The circus tent set up on the main lawn of Humboldthain was hard to miss, and hosted events such as “International Resistance Against Genocide,” along with sign painting, flash mobs, and a theater performance from Theater X. The demo crowd was in the thousands, with many participants in their early 20s. While their chants were against the genocide in Palestine, and Rheinmetall in Berlin, there were also many against compulsory enlistment in the military. With ads for the military as well as those for a new military-themed TV show popping up all over Berlin, Saturday’s crowd showed that Germany’s obsession with becoming (once again) a military force is not something that the citizens want, but is rather something being forced down our throats by yet another genocidal government.
Below you can find photographs taken at the demo.
Gallery 1: Emilie Anomalie
Gallery 2: İbrahim
