Leftist Demonstration

On Saturday, 21 October 2006, I marched along with a large (thousands of people) demonstration, basically against German Sozialabbau (cuts in social services). I was amused when John said the Germans had precise definitions of the different activities that one could engage in. I had called the Sunday march a "strike" (der Streik) instead of calling it a "demonstration" (same word in German, although they just usually use die Demo). At any rate, the pictures below show a lot of people carrying signs and marching along. The demo started in Alexanderplatz in front of the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall).

The middle two pictures on the top row show two girls having a great time carrying around their posters. The poster at the right of the first row has a picture of "Sponge Bob", which was popular with children in the march. At the left in the middle row is a funny black poster complaining about a recent increase in the Mehrwertsteuer (value added tax, "Mwst." on the poster). The middle pictures on the second row show the Berliner Dom (Berlin cathedral) in the background, while other pictures show der Fernsehturm (television tower), Der Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic), and der Reichstag (Parliament). Police were around, but the march was completely peaceful.

Rotes Rathouse	Girls carrying posters					Sponge Bob
die Mehrwertsteuer	der Berliner Dom			der Fernsehturm der Palast der Republik
	der Reichstag (background)					Police

Rote Insel (Red Island, a bar):

Long after the march I ended up at a bar (actually a "dive") called Rote Insel (Red Island). The beer and the music were good, and I talked for a long time with "Gustav" and his wife, parents of a friend of John. Gustav said his name was old-fashioned -- nobody used it in Germany anymore. (Just like John, who by rights should go by Johann, but this also is now an old-fashioned German name.)

Gustav was German, older than I am, but his wife was Italian. They were linguists: they both spoke (at least) German, English, and Italian. We talked about many things (we spoke in mixed German and English), but one thing that struck me was Gustav complaining about Germans romanticizing the old DDR (East German) times before reunification. It turns out that he spent several years in an East German prison. Gustav also told me that Rote Insel was actually an old name for that section of Berlin, given the name because it was an island of communists during the 20's and early 30's. He said that the Nazis had cracked down on this area. In fact, lots of non-Germans like to think that Germany just became a Nazi state without any opposition, but that is false: a large group of leftists put up a strong resistance to the Nazi takeover, and they were brutally repressed. Most of these ended up killed, jailed, or exiled.