Radicals in Leipzig's left district Connewitz: Red Zone

A little bit of confetti and crackpeas are still on the roadsides of Connewitz, a wrapped-in window pane of a hairdressing salon can be seen. A group of punks in leather jackets with beer bottles and piercings moves around, a patrol car drives around the neighborhood.

These are the last traces of New Year's Eve at the "Kreuz", a crossroads in the center of Leipzig-Connewitz. Almost 36 hours earlier, an argument with the police escalated here. A 38-year-old police officer was seriously injured, police said, and he was operated on in a hospital. The State Criminal Police Office investigated suspected attempted murder.

Leipzig Mayor Burkhard Jung (SPD) speaks of left-wing terrorism, the Saxon Interior Minister Roland Wöller (CDU) of "targeted attacks on human life". Leftists, on the other hand, accuse the police of being too aggressive on New Year's Eve. The police provoked the escalation with inappropriate presence, open insults to uninvolved people and unjustified checks on people.

The riots on New Year's Eve in Leipzig are a new high point in a conflict that has been smoldering for years and is increasingly getting out of control. On the one hand, there is a massively growing left-wing scene in Leipzig, which is disrupting itself - and which is unable to keep the violent in its own ranks in check. On the other hand, a pressurized police force, which is criticized from several sides in Saxony, does too little - against crime, against right-wing extremism, and now also against the violence of left-wing radicals.

Defense against right wing groups in the nineties

Connewitz, a good 20,000 inhabitants, has the district in southern Leipzig. Since the nineties it has been something like the left center of eastern Germany. In a region plagued by right-wing extremism, a shelter for minorities, for alternative lifestyles, a cultural scene emerged - but also violent autonomous groups that have seen themselves as defenders of their neighborhood for decades. In the past, when right-wing thugs marched through the district and hunted for the residents, people wanted to remain defensive when the police did nothing.

But now it is primarily the real estate companies and the police themselves that are coming into the focus of the autonomous community. The police, it was said recently in an anonymous Antifa announcement from Leipzig, was an institution "that already has fascism in its DNA". Again and again there were violent clashes between the autonomous community and the police on May 1st and New Year's Eve.

For years, the city tried to pacify the conflict in the neighborhood with legalization projects for squatters and left-wing gathering places such as the youth club "Conne Island". With the boom in Leipzig, however, this peace is becoming increasingly fragile. This year Leipzig exceeded the population of 600,000, in 1988 it was 437,000. Leipzig, planned as a city of millions, with the large Wilhelminian-style quarters is still a long way from conditions like Berlin, but Connewitz is also feared of repression and social selection. Gentrification is progressing. At the same time, new, more aggressive left-wing groups are emerging that are not accessible to the established, as left-wing circles say. The scene is arguing about how to deal with the new violence.

On October 3 this year, unknown people set fire to several cranes on construction sites in the district. The authorized officer of a real estate company who wants to implement a residential project with 40 condominiums was visited by strangers at her home in early November and was slapped in the face. The perpetrators left the apartment with the words "Greetings from Connewitz". A few days ago, two cars were set on fire on the premises of the Leipzig police.

The fight for mayor

The state government reacted by setting up a special commission on left-wing extremism ("Soko LinX"), in which the police and judiciary are to tackle the problem together in Leipzig. However, this also raises the question of what mistakes the police have made in the past, thus driving the violence itself forward. Again and again, peaceful demonstrators report from police officers who insult them, act aggressively and are sometimes chaotic.

In the background, Leipzig delivers the election campaign to become mayor. The CDU politician Sebastian Gemkow is one of the initiators of the new Soko. Until a few weeks ago he was Minister of Justice, in the new cabinet of the Kenyan government he works as Minister of Science. Born in Leipzig, the city administration elected in February and brought the topic into the election campaign. The CDU is trying to exploit the conflict for itself, accusing politicians of other parties of the Christian Democrats.

This also applies to New Year's Eve in Leipzig. At exactly twelve noon on New Year's Eve, Saxony's new, stricter police law came into force, giving the police more powers, a start to a new demonstration of power, the critics of the law see it. Greens, now part of the state government, and The Left sued the law. The left member of the Landtag, Marco Böhme, who has been visiting New Year's Eve in Connewitz for years and was also there that night, says that the police acted more rigorously and exaggeratedly this time than in years. "That is the basic problem," says Böhme.

Nevertheless, if a man who has his helmet removed is lying on the ground and you step on him, "then it has nothing to do with links, nothing to do with politics," says Böhme. "Then it has nothing to do with Connewitz."

Second G20 in Leipzig

So everyone involved is now faced with the task of quickly de-escalating. In particular, an appointment is likely to cause stress among politicians in Saxony: the EU-China summit is scheduled to take place in Leipzig this September. All heads of state and government of the European Union are invited, the first appointment to this extent.

Shortly before Christmas, an "Autonomous Collective Anonymus" sent another announcement. They are pleased that "another left-wing structure summit will be put on the doorstep" and recalled the G20 summit in Hamburg in 2017, where there were violent clashes between the police and demonstrators. It is feared that the police in Connewitz will now try to clear up beforehand.

But they will hardly succeed, write the unknown. "The German government announces full-bodied that the EU-China summit will be 'bigger than the G20'. Then it should be our goal to top the G20 as well." However, there is one request: not only should you rage in your own neighborhoods, but rather the protest should focus on the city center of Leipzig. Connewitz, according to the strategy of the left-wing extremists, should therefore be spared in September.