What explains Berlin's New Year riots?

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

The Story

New Year in Germany is normally an unhinged affair. Even in small towns, Silvester is celebrated with alcohol-fuelled, do-it-yourself firework events in which adults and children alike merrily blast rounds of rockets into the sky.

The level of anarchy - and the fact that authorities let it happen - leaves foreigners rubbing their eyes in disbelief. 

But in Berlin the merriment often seems more sinister. In the streets of the capital, people aim projectiles at windows, teenagers compete to see who can set off powerful “Polish bangers” closest to unsuspecting passers by, and police sirens provide constant background music to the whole occasion.

This year, that latent aggression escalated into all-out madness.

Youths set up burning barricades on the streets and then attacked fire crews who arrived to extinguish the flames.

One fireman told of how his truck arrived at the scene of a fire in the Neukölln district only to be attacked with fireworks f…