Riots after shooting in Berlin | Germany

Riots after shooting in Berlin

Bonn, April 12

Police in West Berlin and in many cities in West Germany have been placed on an emergency footing to deal with a wave of student unrest which has swept the country since the attempted assassination of the student leader, Rudi Dutschke, yesterday.

The Federal Chancellor, Dr Kiesinger, has cut short his Easter holiday, and said on his return to Bonn that a planned political action was in progress which had revolutionary character. He appealed to all those who felt responsible for the maintenance of democracy to show vigilance and calm.

Students were planning last night to prevent the distribution of newspapers of the Axel Springer publishing group, which is accused of "a systematic witch-hunt of political minorities." Student demonstrations against the group's offices were reported during the day from West Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Essen, and Frankfurt.

Rudi Dutschke, the guiding revolutionary spirit of the Socialist Students' Federation (SDS) was gravely wounded on the Kurfurstendam, in West Berlin. He regained consciousness today after a five-hour operation to remove two bullets from his head. The third in his shoulder will be removed later.

Berlin saw another day of violence as a march by about two thousand students developed into pitched battles with police. Several policemen were injured as students charged through police cordons. In places they marched 20 abreast with arms linked. When police retaliated with water hoses one group smashed at the windows in a water cannon wagon. They were forced to leave the crippled vehicle by a policeman with a drawn pistol.

Heavy guard

All the Springer offices are under heavy police guard. Some, as in West Berlin, are surrounded by barbed wire. Last night several thousand young demonstrators threw stones at the Springer building, which towers, symbolically above the Berlin wall, and started a fire in the transport department.

In Munich, demonstrators succeeded in entering the Springer building before the arrival of the police and ran from floor to floor smashing windows and furniture, tearing out telephones, and generally creating havoc. There were clashes between students and printing workers before police could restore order. Numerous Good Friday church services were interrupted. In Frankfurt 200 students entered a church and drowned the singing of the final hymn with a powerful rending of the "Internationale." Leaflets were distributed at a church in Stuttgart accusing Dr Kiesinger and the Mayor of West Berlin, Herr Schütz, of complicity in the attack on Dutschke.

The man who is alleged to have shot Dutschke and who was himself injured during the exchange of shots with the police, has been named as Josef Bachmann, aged 23, who latterly has been lodging with his employer, a housepainter, in Munich. Bachmann was traced by his fingerprints. According to the police, he has a criminal record of house-breaking, theft, illegal possession of a firearm, and resisting arrest.

Bachmann, who has been described by his mother as "peculiar," is alleged to have said that the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King had prompted him to try to kill Dutschke. He is said to have told police: "I heard of the death of Martin Luther King. And since I cannot stand Communists, I felt I must kill Dutschke."

However, except for the fact that both Dr King and Dutschke represented minorities and had to fight against intolerance, they had little in common. Dutschke, whose idols are Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, is no pacifist but an advocate of "active opposition." Like Guevara, he believes that the "duty of every revolutionary is to make revolution." Dutschke regards the SDS as the German avant-garde of a social revolution to overthrow capitalistic imperialists. He would abolish the parliamentary system of the all-powerful Establishment and place control in the hands of Soviets composed of workers and intellectuals. Small wonder that he has become the devil incarnate in a country where orderliness and conformity are virtues prized above most others.

Brilliant scholar

Dutschke was born in East Germany, but was not allowed to study there after passing his university entrance examination because he refused to join the People's Army. He went to West Berlin in 1960 and studied sociology at the Free University. He is regarded as a brilliant scholar and although most of his time has recently been devoted to political activities in many countries he has not neglected work on his thesis for his doctorate. He is married to an American student and they have called their baby "Che."

The excesses of minority of students have been exasperating enough, but the real danger to society is not perhaps the student revolt but the violent reaction it arouses among an uncomprehending population.

Dr Kiesinger referred today to a student's placard bearing the words "Today the students - tomorrow the workers." He said this was the dream of many militant students - that the workers would join the revolutionary movement. But the opposite could very easily happen, he added, and that must at all costs be avoided.

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