Aachen: When the police write the story themselves

Sunday evening in Aachen: Around 200 people march from the Elisenbrunnen through the city center, a spontaneous march against the election results in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD became the strongest force. At the end of the night there was a large-scale operation lasting hours in front of the Autonomous Center on Hackländerstrasse, a encirclement, a violent entry by the police around 12:30 a.m. and a search, for which, according to the Autonomous Center, there was initially neither an accusation nor a court order. Two versions of the night face each other, and this is not a coincidence, but routine.

The police speak of targeted pyrotechnic fire from the meeting, of masked people who fled to the AZ, and of an announced, lawful search. The Autonomous Center tells a different story: The demonstration was deliberately pushed towards the center by emergency services, and an advancing hundred practically forced the people into the building, where around 50 people waited for hours before the door was broken down. Whoever boils first and points first wins the night - and usually that's the institution with the press office, not the one with the occupied house.

The pattern is well known and yet is still sold as an isolated case: a left-wing structure is declared a threat as soon as it is used as a retreat, regardless of the circumstances under which people end up there. The state security agency is investigating physical attacks and particularly serious breaches of the peace, terms that have serious legal implications and are almost always pronounced politically in only one direction. The fact that no one was arrested and no one was injured does not change the fact that an entire house became a siege target for one night, with identification processing carried out for some of those present.

The context in which this happened is crucial: This demonstration was a reaction to a shift to the right, which translated into government majorities in Saxony-Anhalt. If the protest against this shift to the right has to expect a larger police presence than the party it is directed against, that says something about whose safety is actually being defended here. Not that of people who take to the streets before the rise of the AfD, but that of an understanding of order for which squatted houses are fundamentally more suspicious than election results that normalize fascist positions.

The Autonomous Center announces legal action and demands an explanation from the authorities. Whether it comes is secondary. What is crucial is that these nights are repeated, in Aachen, in Leipzig, in Berlin, everywhere where left-wing infrastructure exists that does not fit into the association register and public order office. Anyone who wants to show solidarity with AZ Aachen should not wait for the official statement, but should now take a closer look at who is enforcing whose version.

Sources

Aachener Zeitung: Police operation at the Aachen Autonomous Center after a suspected pyrotechnic attack
100.5 Das Hitradio: Pyrotechnics against police - Autonomous Center criticizes large-scale operation