Just click on the thumbnails below to see the full sized image:

[View with PicLens]

1234►

It was just the beginning of a long and hectic day of crowds, protests and police. It took my German flatmate a few tries to fully explain the situation to me:

Contrary to popular belief in the US, neo-Nazis are not out-and-out banned in Germany. The far-right party here, the National Democratic Party, is legally entitled to demonstrate like any other political party, although they are not allowed to display swastikas or directly link themselves to Hitler’s Nazi regime. So, when they go to city hall and apply for a permit to have a demonstration march, city hall has to allow it. And legally, the police have to protect the demonstrators as they would those from any other group.

Naturally, no one else in town is too happy about this, but that’s how it has to be. The only solution is to stage such a massive protest that the police tell the Nazis to go home for their own safety. And that’s exactly what happened. All day along. Around the corner from my apartment.

Beginning at 10am, the anti-Nazi protesters started gathering at two locations along the neo-Nazi’s planned demonstration route. At the beginning, the police cleared them out of the way – without permits, they weren’t technically allowed to block the road. In a well-publicized incident, even Vice President of the German parliament, Wolfgang Thierse, sat down in the street to protest – and he was gently removed, like all the others.

Twitter updates came in rapid succession: “Location A has been cleared out, everyone available proceed to Location B.”  But location B was unreachable due to police blockades. Finally, one location managed to get a permit, and people from all over town started pouring in. By noon, as my flatmate and I cautiously poked our heads around the corner to check on the mayhem, we were pleasantly surprised to find a giant, peaceful protest blocking the entire four-lane road.

Home made banners reading “Nazi’s Out” and “No Violence”  had been hastily scrawled on old bed sheets, and green balloons with the slogan “No Room for Nazis” bobbed in the breeze. A double row of barricades crossed the entire street, and behind them stood police, shoulder-to-shoulder in full riot gear. The message was clear: we could stand there and peacefully block the parade route, but nobody was getting through where they could start any real trouble.

The sign above his head displays the message: Due to protests and police blockades, there is no tram service at this time.

Fortunately the stone-throwing black-bloc protesters had disappeared somewhere else, and as the crowd grew throughout the next couple of hours the mood remained relaxed and sociable.

The balloon reads: No Room for Nazis

Around 2pm, the neo-Nazi demonstrators were still nowhere to be seen, and I headed back to my apartment for a while. I planned to take the train to another part of town, where each year there is a massive street festival with music, food, and enough people to jam every street within a 5 block radius. At about 4pm, I headed out the door with my camera, and was happy to see that the protests near my place seemed to have thinned without incident. I should have known better.

As I walked towards the train station, I suddenly came upon a new group of protesters, even larger than the one from that morning. They had reassembled and were blocking every side street leading up to the station, preventing the neo-Nazis from redirecting their march to get around the initial blockade. I managed to squeeze my way through the crowds, and the police guarding the station politely let passengers through. I bought a ticket and, seeing that I had 1o minutes to kill before my train arrived, headed back outside.

As I took the photo above, the police politely stood aside as I exited – and then, responding to a message on their walkie-talkies, closed off both entrances and refused to let anyone inside. The station, with it’s long staircases and front-and-back entrances, would be a strategic nightmare for them if the demonstrations got out of hand. I was stuck inside my own neighborhood. The trams had long since stopped running, the main train station was blocked off, and the other nearby train line had cut off service several stations south from me. I headed south by foot until I was out of the protest area and found a tram line that was still in service.

As I finally squeezed my way onto the packed tram half-an-hour later, a neighboring passenger managed to elbow enough room for himself to fish the ringing cell phone out of his pocket. He spoke briefly to his friend on the line, then announced to the entire car: “The Nazis gave up! They turned around and went home!”

View more images from this gallery or purchase image rights via my archive at Photoshelter:

May Day in Berlin -Images by Kristal Burtrum

The day was cold and overcast – not exactly photo weather – but the models somehow held it together for a great show. The various costume themes were borrowed from a children’s book called The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle, and as the characters paraded down the streets in their bizarre finery, even a few unsuspecting bystanders were drawn into the festivities.

(Just click on the photos for a blow-up view)

[View with PicLens]

In the last couple of months, I’ve found myself in yet another micro-world within a micro-world. I’ve landed in the world of the Techies. The programmers, designers, creatives, and bloggers who are on the tip of the technological evolution, and are loving every minute of it. The ones fighting for data-protection, who can explain in accurate and complex detail exactly what and where all this “data” is and what could potentially be done with it. The guys and girls who stand around at parties, Twittering about the party and checking their messages to see who might be on the way there.

Tonight I am sitting at an Election Night party taking place after the Atoms and Bits networking conference. The Atoms and Bits conference was a chance for do-it-yourselfers throught Berlin to meet with each other for grass-roots style discussion groups and idea-sharing sessions. The main theme is “do it yourself” – i.e. take control, understand what’s going on around you, and make it what you want it to be. “It” could be anything from a website, to a political campaign, to a self-designed line of clothing.

The attendees are all creative types, and for the most part, heavily teched-out. The conference itself, and the party now, offer free W-Lan connections to anyone with a laptop (or iPhone)… which is most of us here. As I sit here in the gathering dark, I look around and see a sea of laptop screens glowing blue in the twilight, their owners tapping busily away with coding or social networking services.

Here are a few photos of the Election Party, to illustrate my point:

See no evil, hear no evil, code no evil: the three branches of media all together on one bench.

Early in  the evening – the sea of laptops just beginning to build.

An analog relic, still providing the best sound quality to true enthusiasts.

An even more rarely-seen analog artifact – pen and paper!

A workshop participant offers self-made T-shirts and on-the-spot silk screening for blank bags, shirts, etc.

Markus Beckedahl of the blog/political platform Netzpolitik.org

Well-known Twitterer mspro, who also helped to organize the Atoms and Bits conference