Upcoming unity celebration in Bremen: uniformity and there is something for everyone

A black, red and gold tram has been running through Bremen since May. “Look forward to the community festival,” the slogan promises, like an archangel. The two-city state currently holds the presidency of the Federal Council and that means: Bremen is hosting the central celebrations for German Unity Day this year.

And this celebration of unity should be big, somehow bigger than ever before in the 36 years since German unity was achieved. 400,000 visitors, perhaps even more, are expected. From October 2nd to 4th there will be “scenarios in the city that Bremen will never experience again,” the Weser Kurier quotes the responsible employee of the Senate Chancellery. Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte (SPD) said that “the city is vibrating,” and that was already in May.

Exciting everything! A look at the previously known program reduces blood pressure back to normal values. So: The Fantastic Four are coming anyway, that's something. According to the website, the rest of the stage program will be presented “probably in September”, so it will probably be available until October 3rd. Somehow this is supposed to create tension.

Then there is the “Mile of the Constitutional Bodies”, well, and the “Mile of the Federal States” (with “delicacies from all corners of the Federal Republic” – Saumagen or eel in jelly or something like that). And of course, like every year, the blue light mile – “more than Tatütata,” claims the announcement on the website.

Bremen itself also presents itself at the festival, with ten aspects. That's probably a good thing, because a number of Prime Ministers who were interviewed in advance on Instagram only came up with “the town musicians” when they heard about Bremen. Or were they simply too polite to answer the question about “typical Bremen” instead “problem child”, “debt hole” and “education poor”?

There is also a Ferris wheel, and a large rocket (not a real one, of course) and, according to a speaker, a “rave in the tunnel”; That sounds somehow unappealing to the Duisburg Love Parade, but it's something different for Bremen. And then the supporting program: the website promises theater, concerts, debates “and much more.” There are a few lectures and films about the GDR and its legacy, at least. And otherwise everything else that is happening these days is just mashed up: Romeo and Juliet, an art exhibition, a hands-on station in the city library.

Every mosquito bite is ennobled as part of the supporting program. A win-win situation: The largest community festival ever can expand its somewhat meager program. And for the organizers, the unity celebration attracts a little extra attention.

A few militant radicals apparently thought something similar: Something had been simmering for a long time; In August, autonomous groups launched a campaign on the platforms tumulte.org and Indymedia. The motto is to make German Unity Day in Bremen a disaster.

Now, a series of attacks in Bremen are apparently being linked to October 3rd, and there are already letters of responsibility for three of them. The attack on an AI start-up from Bremen Überseestadt, with paint and butyric acid, has a local and somewhat current reason because of the surveillance in the Bremen tram with artificial intelligence, but the autonomous groups also frame it as a foretaste of the protests against the “Germany celebration”.

A week earlier there was a burning Tesla in the Stadtwerder, and at the end of August there was an attack on the rental car company Enterprise, which is accused of being involved in deportations by the immigration authority ICE in the USA. Elon Musk, ICE, everything far, far away in America, but a minimal transition in terms of content is enough for the left-wing radicals to stir everything together, to complain a bit against “Germany’s present and future” in the letter of confession with the hashtag October 3rd, and to call for a “Black Autumn in Bremen and beyond”.

All federal states are responsible for organizing the unity celebration on October 3rd once every 16 years. This usually causes great indifference. In Bremen, however, the unexpected always happens.

1994: On the 5th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Senate decided on a state ceremony without public access in the exhibition halls and sausage stands on the market square. All demonstrations against the unity celebration were banned in advance and all civil society alliances that wanted to protest were given the prospect of a cancellation of all donations. There were massive riots, which were responded to by the police with massive force and a total of 329 arrests. Federal President Roman Herzog's bath in the crowd was canceled due to egg rain. He ended his visit to Bremen early.

2010: On the 20th anniversary of reunification, various media outlets feared a headline-grabbing scenario like 16 years earlier in several worried articles. After a verbally radical demonstration the evening before, the celebrations were peaceful: the martial police had obviously not expected this. Completely unexpectedly, the new Federal President Christian Wulff gives a groundbreaking speech: "Islam is now also part of Germany," he explains with a clever reference to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. But his successor will find that stupid.

It is a tradition that Bremen unity celebrations cause unrest. Somehow there is a little more going on here than elsewhere; in Hamburg, for example, the scene only registered one counter-demo in 2023 (“Germany, you lousy piece of shit” was banned as a demo motto at the time).

In the end, you get the impression that everyone benefits a little from the ritualized riot: the autonomous groups get a little extra attention for their actions; The opposition is entitled to focus on its favorite topic of internal security and demand more rights for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And the Senate? Well – at least there is a bit of excitement in advance of the big event. Or as the city writes on the homepage for German Unity Day: “There is something for everyone.”