German Intelligence Warned the Far Left Would Hijack Saturday's 'Gen Z' Marches. Then Rioters Smashed a Frankfurt Gun Shop's Windows

Germany's security services said it out loud before a single marcher showed up. By Saturday night, Frankfurt police were posting warnings that Molotov cocktails were being thrown at their officers.

A youth movement calling itself "Gen Z regelt" (roughly, "Gen Z's got this") called marches in about 30 German cities on Oct. 31, against a possible return of military conscription, school cuts and the cost of living. Its organizers said in writing that the protests would be peaceful. They also said they stood with the youth protests in France, Belgium and Italy, which have turned into weeks of clashes, arson and looting.

The warning

On Friday, Hamburg's domestic intelligence office published a notice naming the far-left groups helping to drum up turnout: the Open Antifascist Meeting Hamburg, Red Construction (Roter Aufbau) and the Interventionist Left, plus extremist groups with ties abroad such as Young Struggle and Thawra. The office said their calls to march praised what was happening in France, "in part" including the violent clashes.

Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency had issued its own warning on Wednesday, NDR reported: it is a known tactic of left-wing extremists, the agency said, to hook onto legitimate protest and radicalize it. Shop owners on Hamburg's luxury streets boarded up their windows on Friday.

Frankfurt

About 8,000 people marched through Frankfurt in the afternoon, police said. Then fireworks and stones started flying at officers, and police broke up the march and turned a water cannon on the attackers.

Hesse's interior minister, Roman Poseck, a Christian Democrat, said the warning had sadly come true. "We estimate about 100 left-wing extremist violent offenders," he told the German news agency dpa. "They attacked the police massively with thrown bottles, with stones and with pyrotechnics." Several officers were hurt, he said, one possibly more seriously.

It got worse after dark. Frankfurt police closed off the Zeil, the city's main shopping street, and reported windows smashed at several stores and Molotov cocktails thrown at officers.

Rioters also broke the windows of a gun shop on Berliner Strasse. Police said they arrested one suspect, seized two weapons and secured the guns inside the store.

By late evening, more than 30 people had been provisionally arrested and special forces (SEK) had been called in. Hesse's Interior Ministry said more than 1,000 officers were downtown with water cannon and armored vehicles. With help from federal police, officers at Hanau station, about 12 miles east, caught four minors carrying what police believe was loot from Frankfurt. Shortly after 1 a.m., police boxed in a group of about 100 people downtown for identity checks. Public broadcaster hr reported that rioters wrecked a parked patrol car, smashing its windows and slashing its tires.

Poseck called it a "devastating combination of left-wing extremists and violent young people" and promised a hard crackdown. Minister-President Boris Rhein said anyone acting like the attackers had put themselves "outside our society."

Hamburg

In Hamburg, about 6,700 people marched against conscription. According to the police department's final report, some participants masked up and set off pyrotechnics, and several took pieces of police barriers and lit a small fire with them inside the march, then pelted officers with stones and fireworks. The organizer called it off early, at 4:56 p.m.

Small groups kept trying to drag objects into the street and set them on fire. Crowds of up to several hundred gathered near the main train station and threw fireworks at officers, and police cleared the area with a water cannon more than once. Around 10 p.m., officers stopped about 120 people who had been hauling construction material and e-scooters into the road, and took all of them into provisional custody. About 1,300 officers were on duty.

"Unfortunately, troublemakers mixed in with the peaceful demonstrators today in order to deliberately provoke and commit crimes," police spokesman Sebastian Born said. He said police drones had helped pick out offenders and strip away their anonymity.

France, again

Across the border, France held its third Saturday of marches in three weeks. The Interior Ministry counted 320,000 marchers, 70,000 of them in Paris, and deployed about 70,000 police and gendarmes. By 9 p.m. it had logged 565 arrests nationwide, after 1,435 the Saturday before.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the marches themselves went off, but groups of rioters showed up in every procession. In Paris, a Molotov cocktail set a riot gendarme's protective gear on fire. Nuñez called it attempted murder. The Paris police prefecture said five officers were hurt in the capital, three of them by Molotov cocktails.

Earlier in the day, Nuñez said the calls to gather again Saturday night in several big cities came generally from the ultra-left and from radicalized far-left and far-right groups, and that anyone who stayed put would be arrested.

Hamburg police said they did not yet have solid numbers on injured officers or arrests. Frankfurt has not yet put a price on the damage.