In Germany 21 police and 25 protesters were injured overnight when neo-Nazi marchers charged anti-fascist protesters in Berlin and leftists clashed with police in Hamburg. Berlin was expected to be the flashpoint for violence, and more than 6,000 police were deployed. Reinforcements guarded government buildings in the city centre. An estimated 10,000 people gathered in the Kreuzberg district, long a centre of May Day trouble. Police detained more than 20 people after earlier clashes.
During the day more than 2,500 policemen were on duty in the Hellersdorf area of Berlin, in the east of the city. Most of the neo-Nazis in the area were young men aged between 16 and 25 who gathered to hear speeches and listen to music by Hitler's favourite composer Richard Wagner and others. Running street battles between right-wing extremists, neo-Nazis and skinheads on one side and socialists and extreme left-wingers known as "Autonomists" have became a staple of Berlin's May Day holiday in recent years.
The atmosphere in Hamburg was described as tense throughout May Day; 41 people were hurt when protestors stones at banks, broke shop windows and set fire to cars in the city centre after midnight. A policeman suffered a broken arm when police charged the demonstrators and three police were treated in hospital, a spokesman said. Left-wing activists said that 25 protesters were hurt.
