Frankfurt Germany Protesters

Throughout the eurozone debt crisis, the European Central Bank has sought to exude self-confidence. But last month, top ECB policy makers had to pack their bags and leave town.
The cause was not political turmoil in Greece or worries about banks elsewhere in the eurozone. Protests by German radicals on the doorstep of its Frankfurt headquarters threatened to take a violent turn and the police had sealed off the city centre. A conference marking the departure of José Manuel González-Páramo as ECB executive board member was moved to a hotel at the airport, safely on the city’s borders.

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As the ECB has learnt, Frankfurt has a – perhaps surprising – tradition for political radicalism and demonstrations. When the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations spread, Frankfurt was a natural focus within Germany, and the Occupy Frankfurt camp outside the ECB building became a much-photographed emblem of the eurozone debt crisis.
As the crisis has escalated, Frankfurt has become a stronghold for movements such as Attac, which campaigns against “neoliberal” globalisation and for the regulation of financial markets and for a financial transaction tax.
Both history and geography have played a role. In the 1960s and 1970s, Frankfurt was a leftwing bastion of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the German socialist students union, the student movement that was ejected from the SPD in 1961 because of its radicalism, which led anti-authoritarian protests. That provided a contrast to the many US troops stationed in the region.
Frankfurt was also home to IG Metall, the powerful engineering sector trade union. Providing brain power was the so-called “Frankfurt school” of critical, left-orientated thought at Frankfurt university’s institute of social research.
As a result, Frankfurt ranked second only to Berlin as a German centre for the global protests of 1968. “Berlin was the wild, impulsive centre, Frankfurt was more the intellectual centre,” says Gerd Koenen, then a Frankfurt student and today a historian.
Frankfurt’s small size actually helped. With protests along just a few streets, Frankfurt radicals could cause widespread disruption. “Whenever there was a demonstration, half of the city was paralysed. It was a relatively simple method,” recalls Mr Koenen.
German radicalism had a dark side in the 1970s – a time when Frankfurt was going through a development spurt, with a boom in high-rise office block construction. Frankfurt provided the backdrop to some of the tensest scenes in the country’s battle with the Red Army Faction, the leftwing terror group.
From the mid-1970s, house sit-in protests developed into an alternative movement, with its own newspapers, publishers and printers, which addressed increasingly environmental themes and gained ground within the newly emerging Green party.
“The goal was to give up the extra-parliamentary protests and advance parliamentary representation,” says Wolfgang Kraushaar, historian at Hamburg’s Institute for Social Research.
In the 1980s, Joschka Fischer, a prominent Frankfurter who became German foreign minister in the late 1990s, was among the Green party’s “realos” – or realists – who led the struggle against the Green party’s hard-left “fundis” or fundamentalists. In much of the city, the Greens remain strong and are almost the political mainstream rather than a fringe grouping.
With the rise of the Occupy Frankfurt movement, the city is regaining its radical edge – although for different reasons. “It is easy to say that today’s protest generation are standing on the shoulders of their predecessors,” says Mr Kraushaar.
“That is not completely wrong, especially as within the Occupy Frankfurt scene there are people who were counted among the activists 40 years ago. But this is superficial. You cannot draw a direct line between the Occupy movement and the 1968s. There are significant differences in regard to their form and goals.”
Whereas the 1968-ers were ambitious and idealistic in their radicalism, movements such as Attac are arguably more pragmatic, and focused on seemingly technical issues such as bank capital ratios or financial supervision. “You don’t really win many people over with ‘smash the system’,” explains Sybille von Foelkersamb, a member of Attac Frankfurt’s co-ordinating committee.
The most recent demonstrations attracted participants of all ages rather than being essentially student led. They were also focused on attacking the banking system – hardly a feature of protests in the 1960s – which explains why Frankfurt, as Germany’s financial centre, was the focus of demonstrations. The city’s mid-German location makes it a natural choice for protesters as the country’s high-speed train network means it can be reached within a few hours from most parts of Germany.
Frankfurt’s authorities were lenient for some time. The Occupy Frankfurt camp in a small park next to the ECB headquarters building – a 1970s high-rise in the centre of the financial district – remained throughout the bitter winter months. But in May the city’s authorities worried it would be used as a refuge by violent demonstrators and closed it down. A series of demonstrations intended to “Blockupy” the city centre were banned.
The result was a nervous stand off in May. For four days, the banking quarter of Frankfurt, where the ECB is located, was sealed off and some 5,000 police were deployed to stop any attempt to flout the bans. The result was an eerie calm, which led to criticism of the police for their apparent overreaction.
Organisers concluded they had made their point. “The police did the job for us – the banks were more or less blocked,” says Ms von Foelkersamb. On the final day some 25,000 demonstrators took part in a mostly peaceful – and authorised – march through the town.
The demonstrations are far from over. The next battles could be about the future of the camp outside the ECB building, which returned to life after the protests. The debates about the future of banking remain as animated as ever, which will also keep the city on edge. “OK, Frankfurt is sleepy, but it is where things are happening,” says Ms von Foelkersamb.

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