Much is being talked about the German town of Chemnitz and how Nazis went around town in droves assaulting innocent people in the wake of a stabbing of a White man and the subsequent arrest of an Iraqi and Syrian. This account is from someone fighting back against them. Note that there is opposition building against a rally called by the boneheads for Sept. 1, and we send well wishes to those stopping them.

heartsucker.com

On the night of Sunday the 26th, I saw footage of fascist thugs and gangs of nazis roaming the streets of Chemnitz in broad day light, assaulting people and chasing children. This was the right wing reaction to the arrest of two young men, an Iraqi and a Syrian, in connection to a fatal stabbing in Chemnitz in the early hours of Sunday morning after the Chemnitz Stadt Fest.

Monday morning, I saw that the left was sounding the alarm because the right from Germany, and later reported by The Guardian, the rest of Europe too, was converging on Chemnitz for a demonstration that would likely turn into fascist violence. I texted the few comrades I thought might be up for a spontaneous antifa adventure. One, let’s call him Johan, said he was up for it, so we scrambled some plans, and took off for Hauptbahnhof to catch a train.

I doubled checked my riot bag, and opted for Bloc attire instead of my usual high-viz medic gear. I grabbed sandwiches and snacks on the way, and we got on the train with only minutes to spare.

On board, we skimmed the #c2708 hashtag on Twitter to keep up to date on what was happening and where people were meeting. Before we left, we already knew there was a nazi demo scheduled at the Karl Mark Memorial and a counter-demo across the street for 17:00. There wasn’t much in the way of updates, so we studied maps of the city to have an idea of where the major cross street where and what some of the major geographic features were. We made contingency plans in case we got separated. Shortly before we arrived, a map was circulated with some points of interest and the nazis’ proposed route.

At Chemnitz Hauptbahnhof, riot cops were scattered about in pairs to ward off minor confrontations. We found two young femmes who seemed to be heading to the same event as us, so we joined them and talked about the city a bit. An additional two more tagged along with us as we walked to the rally point. We took a slightly indirect route, not knowing if there would already be police blockades.

From Mühlenstraße, we walked down Brückenstraße toward Stadthallenpark which lay directly across from the Karl Marx Memorial. There were some shops that appeared to be Middle Eastern and owned by people of color. We made a guess that they would be a target for vandalism. In front of a one was what looked suspiciously like a nazi, or maybe have possibly been hired security or a plainclothes cop, who was monitoring the area.

In the park, there were maybe 100 people already gathered. We found a spot in the shade, and watched as more people trickled in. Johan talked with a few of the groups to see if anyone wanted to assemble in front of the shops to prevent them from being vandalized, but no one wanted to go with us unless there was a large group.

One group was writing Ordner (“Order-keeper” / “marshal”) on strips of white cloth and handing them out to people to use as arm bands. They offered them to us. Johan declined, and I rolled my eyes at them.

Johan and I walked back to the might-be-a-nazi and asked him if he was keeping an eye on the shops. He wasn’t interested in talking and walked off, so we decided he was definitely a nazi. We went back to the park and stood on the corner to keep and eye and possibly make some noise to get people over there if it looked like something was happening.

The counter-demo was growing, but so was the nazi assembly, however we still outnumbered them by a fair amount. Police vans were lining up in font of the park to create a barrier between the left and the right. And of course, like always, they boxed us in on our side because the people who came to counter the people German newspapers were calling “human-hunters” were the real threat. There was still space to make some noise at the right, and some 10-15 people of color were there by themselves throwing insults at the right. The left, from the punks to the SPD were in the park listening to some milquetoast bootlicker on the PA. Johan and I were the only “classic” left wing people on the front line, and the only white ones.

When the short speeches were over, the crowd came down toward the street, but most stayed behind the hedges instead of coming down to the sidewalk. In front of the police vans, the Ordners stood, facing the crowd, presumably there to quell any attempts to scale the vans or vandalize them.

To you, the bootlickers who were there on the cops side, as the cops obviously side with the nazis, as the state slides down towards right wing fascism, what did you think you were doing? The cops don’t need protection. If Germany falls back into fascism, how ridiculous are you going to feel when you have to recount that instead of throwing bricks at literal nazis as they began to rise, you instead put your body on the line to protect the cops who protect the fascists from the possibility of violence from the left?

The next couple of hours were relatively uneventful. People yelled at the right, and the right yelled back. It was obvious were outnumbered at least three to one by the right, and there was little chance to meaningfully disrupt their event through blockades or other more common disobedient tactics.

As the right prepared to march, fireworks, mostly of the variety that are more loud than bright, were thrown from the right at the left along with bottles and stones. I didn’t see anything thrown from the left to provoke this, and thought it is possible, I suspect not given the hyper-aggression from the right and the more moderate response to the left. Note that this is also mean to be a criticism of the left that day for not being aggressive enough.

The cops started motioning the crowd back from a couple of the points where they’d advanced, and with subservient Ordners helping clear space, the left retreated into the park. Water cannon equipped vehicles rolled into the space between the right and the left, but held their fire. While I watched this retreat, two of the medics I’d seen early came up to join us. They were locals to Sachsen, but not from Chemnitz. They asked if I was actually a medic, on account of the black cross on my bag. I said yes, and they gave me a brief summary of their movements so I could injured comrades to them later.

Johan and I moved back into the center of the park and saw a bit of a block forming, and went to join them. We heard people talking in code and could see obvious teams that were coordinated in some way. We guessed that if something interesting were to happen, it would start here. The event coordinator, he who pontificated about how to counter the fascists and thought it being his event meant he had control over the demonstrators, was trying to coax the Bloc into moving elsewhere and doing his bidding. It was comically naive.

The Bloc moved neither at his behest or their own volition.

I sat against a lamppost and rested my eyes. I had already woken up exhausted that morning, and anything I could to do get some more energy before nightfall and the real violence was a small blessing.

Some folks were talking about walking back to the train station before night. Some wanted to try to get a police escort. Some wanted to stay until the end of the nazi march.

The Bloc called to form up again, and we huddled while people talked about what to do. It seemed the Bloc wanted to fight while the softer left went home. People started digging up cobble stones, though they were far too large to throw, so I have no idea what their intention was. The Bloc then formed a line in the middle of the park, though it wasn’t clear what the point of that was. The soft left was still pressed up against the police line and shouting at the nazis, so we weren’t defending them. The rest of the soft left were about to walk back unescorted.

What is the point of being “militant” left if you can’t even protect anyone. Dressing in black and stashing bottles and rocks in your pockets doesn’t make you cool. Go to where the violence is, absorb it into your body, defend those who need it.

The riot cops saw this, and they started lining up in preparation for a charge to break it up. The left then started slowly walking back. “Slow, slow, quite slow.” Eventually we were back at the mass of the soft left that wanted to get out safely, having accomplished literally nothing.

Finally, it got to the point where people were walking back without escort, heading east through some buildings. The Bloc again huddled and discussed what to do, and again they seemed to fail to grasp that the goal here was not antagonization of the right but protection of the left. Some split to walk with the group east, and some stayed at the rear. They yelled back and forth in an attempt to coordinate, but it was herding cats; the group was moving and the Bloc trying to alter their path was causing serious unease.

Johan and I were walking towards the front of the group. It was loose and disorganized, as one might expect given that it seemed to be made mostly of people who had never been in a riot before, people who have never feared for fascist violence on the streets. It looked more like a high school class on a trip through Chemnitz than an organized demonstration against right wing vigilante violence. An group of 12-15, obviously nazis, started approaching our group, and no one seemed to notice. I yelled they were nazis and pointed them out which was enough to halt their approach and for the people far from the main body of lefties to get a bit closer.

With minimal police escort, we crossed through Johannisplatz and started crossing through traffic across Bahnhofstraße. Johan and I had let ourselves fall to the back of the group so we could watch for assailants from the rear. While the group was attempting to organize itself, for literally no reason at all, a phalanx of riot cops charged at the group and almost caused it to split in panic. It felt intentional, like they just wanted to fuck with us.

The group reformed itself a bit, some 200 of us standing around in the dark and blocking traffic. Across the streets, we could see groups of nazis congregating and waiting to make a move on us. About half the distance between antifa and the nazis, the local riot medics stood in no man’s land, as they are somewhat required to do to maintain the appear of neutrality during demonstrations. However, this was not a demonstration and has ceased to be as soon as we left the park. This was now something more akin to a group convoy for protection. I walked up to them and pointed out that they were too close to the nazis for their safety and I ushered the five of them back to us.

Over by the nazis, some PoC who appeared to be youth and children, came sprinting by while other nazis chased them. One, a kid of about 10 years, ran up to two femmes next to me. He was terrified to the point of being barely able to speak. The two of them tried to talk to him in German. He clearly understood them, but he wasn’t able to respond. I joined in when he was able to get out the word for apartment and asked where he lived. He pointed vaguely toward a side street, and I started to ask the femmes if we could escort him home when he ran off through the crowd by himself. I wanted to chase after him and make him wait for an escort, but if I ran off without Johan, I might not find him again.

The child was gone, off into the dangerous night.

I should have followed him since my friend was going to be able to make it Leipzig with the rest of the group quite safely, and the kid needed someone, anyone to help him. I hesitated when he ran, and there was no way to recover from that pause.

More riot cops had arrived to escort the group to the central station, now with enough to form a sparse single file line around the group. Stragglers kept falling behind the group despite its casual pace. I yelled at them to keep up, but the kept falling behind the rear police escort, not realizing this put them at risk. The entire walk back, there were minor confrontations with the right, and yet the cops were still filming us like we were the agitators. Journalists walked between the police escort and the nazis that were waiting for us and walking along side us not realizing that they were endangering themselves (the nazis had been chanting about the “lying press” earlier).

The group arrived at the train station, and the cops had to hold back nazis in corridors while we passed. We piled into the train to Leipzig, and I help the other medics treat some minor ailments. Twitter was reporting assaults and gangs of nazis terrorizing people on the streets.

From Leipzig, the only route home was a mess of regional trains. On the train to Magdeburg, we talked with some other antifas about the day and the plans for the week. They directed us to a park we slept for a few hours under a shared emergency blanket while we waited for our connection.

At 06:30, I arrived home, took a hot shower, and crashed into bed.

Lessons

If you’re a medic, you need to make it your goal to find the place where the most violence is an stand right next to it. Standing around in the middle of a park means you can’t see or hear violence when it happens, and you don’t want injured people and their comrades to have to find you.

Don’t be a fucking bootlicker. Don’t work with the cops (exceptions made for leveraging the force of the state against itself or fascists), and especially not to crowd control the left. Don’t tell people not to escalate, because those of us on the far left actually have a decent idea about what amount of violence is effective and tactical, and if we decide to throw some stones, there’s probably a good reason.

Know what kind of event you’re at and who your adversaries are can save your life. There is a difference between a protest, a riot, and a street fight. You can’t sit-blockade at a riot or a street fight. Nazis don’t care about decorum or neutrality, and the more an even edges away from being a protest, the more likely neutral parties are to be injured. Journalists need to know that the Bloc in general doesn’t hate them; they just don’t want their pictures taken or video recorded around them. When things get bad, protect yourself by joining them.

The Black Bloc is a tactic, not an aesthetic. The Black Bloc is an anonymizer that allows people to commit crimes with lower risk of identification and arrest. The Black Bloc is an intimidation tactic against fascists. The Black Bloc is security against doxxing. The Black Bloc is a sink for violence, a way to divert fascist boots and fists, state sanctioned or otherwise, away from protesters who merely want to show solidarity and not put their bodies on the line. Masking up is great and good, and I encourage it, but it is more important to provide protection for those who need it than to hold some flag poles and glass bottles in your hands and stare down riot cops.

Note: ACAB (always and forever) and while the cops in Chemnitz did an absolutely abysmal job of protecting the left from nazi violence, but I can also say that so far as I could see, they actually did more to stop the nazis from mobbing the protesters than the Bloc did.

However, the most important lesson seen both during #c2708 and the week before during the Rudolf Heß march in Berlin is that the left in general seems to rely on reactionary and tried-and-true tactics.

Plan. Play war games. Get together in a room and do the antifascist equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons, or as they say in other fields, run table top scenarios. How should groups move? When do splits happen? What happens when we’re out numbered. What happens when the cops are hyper aggressive on a given day. Make a playbook, and even if you don’t stick to it, you’ll be better prepared for spur of the moment action.

Train. Learn to run faster, further. Practice scaling fences. Learn how to throw a bunch a block one too.

This is far right terror, and innocent people at risk. It’s time to turn the militant aesthetic into militant praxis.