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New Year clashes between police and revellers in Berlin and other cities have sparked political ructions after fireworks accidents left five dead and dozens injured, increasing tensions a few weeks before Germany’s election.
The violence has revived a debate over whether to prohibit the private use of powerful pyrotechnic devices during New Year celebrations, a German tradition that has grown in popularity since the pandemic and has led to many casualties and material damage in recent years.
The incidents have renewed calls from police and health officials for stricter curbs on the public use of Kugelbomben or “bullet-bomb” fireworks, many of which are homemade.
As voters prepare to go to the polls in an early federal election on February 23, the fallout from New Year has added tension to a campaign that has been dominated by the themes of law and order. Germany is still reeling from an attack last month in the eastern town of Magdeburg, where a Saudi Arabian national drove through a crowd at a Christmas market, killing five and injuring dozens of people.
Nancy Faeser, Germany’s Social Democratic interior minister, vowed to impose tougher sanctions on those deliberately targeting police officers or other civil servants. She favoured prison sentences of up to five years, she told the Bild newspaper on Thursday.
Volker Wissing, justice minister, said the criminal code “already offers the possibility of severely punishing attacks like the ones we saw on New Year’s Eve”. However, the perpetrators must “quickly feel the severity of the law”, he told Bild.
Traditional street firework celebrations that began late on Wednesday turned particularly disruptive after groups of young partygoers set off pyrotechnic rockets, some targeting police officers and damaging buildings. Police arrested more than 400 people in Berlin, where clashes left 30 officers and one firefighter injured and 36 flats damaged, according to local authorities.
Hospitals including Berlin’s Charité reported dozens of self-inflicted injuries, including to the eyes, faces and hands. The five deaths, in towns in the west and east of the country, were caused by the mishandling of fireworks, some requiring a permit. Clashes with police were also reported in Kiel and Cologne.
Alice Weidel, the candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), seized on the clashes to link them to immigration.
Weidel, whose party is projected to become the second largest political force in German parliament with about 18 per cent of the vote, said the New Year’s violence must have “consequences”.
“Foreign violent criminals like the man who shot a rocket into an apartment in Berlin and thus endangered people have forfeited their right to hospitality and must be deported!,” she added in a post on X, retweeting an article about an influencer shooting fireworks at a building.
The influencer, who does not live in Germany, later apologised, according to German daily Die Welt.
Authorities blamed the widespread use of Kugelbomben for inflicting particularly severe injuries this year. While these devices are not illegal, they are used in pyrotechnic displays and detonate within seconds of being ignited.
Police and firefighters’ unions have regularly called for a ban on such devices during New Year’s celebrations.
