Germany, youth marches by "Gen Z regelt" followed by violence at night
· BehindLines newsroom · Updated
On Saturday 31 October 2026, young people demonstrated in more than thirty German cities at the call of the initiative "Gen Z regelt", which could be rendered as "Gen Z takes care of it". According to ZDF and the Tagesspiegel, the daytime marches passed largely without incident, but violence broke out in the evening, mainly in Frankfurt and Cologne. The demonstrations took place on 31 October; violence continued into the following night. The cited accounts date from 1 November and remain provisional.
What the demonstrators want
According to ZDF, the initiative asks for more resources for schools, for support for people with addictions and for psychotherapy, for measures against the rising cost of living, for more social justice and more climate protection. It rejects a return to compulsory military service and an expansion of state surveillance. The Turkish daily Hürriyet Daily News adds that some participants wanted education to come before military spending and opposed planned health and pension reforms, and that banners called for Chancellor Friedrich Merz to resign or expressed solidarity with France; according to that outlet, some participants wore keffiyehs or carried Palestinian flags in support of people in Gaza. It adds that some participants cited student actions in France as inspiration, and that similar mobilisations had taken place in Belgium and Italy.
A 16-year-old pupil quoted by Hürriyet says the windows at her school do not close properly and that teachers are in short supply: a concrete example of the argument about underfunded schools.
Figures that do not agree
The movement's spokesperson, Amadeo, spoke of "a hundred thousand" participants, according to ZDF and the Tagesspiegel. ZDF speaks for its part, in its introduction, of "tens of thousands" of young people without naming a counting source. Hürriyet gives more than 100,000 without specifying where the figure comes from. No national police total was available in the sources consulted.
City by city, the Tagesspiegel reports, citing police: up to 3,500 people at the start on Rosenthaler Platz in Berlin and up to 5,000 in front of the Brandenburg Gate; about 5,000 in Munich. The Berlin organisers, for their part, announced close to 10,000 (Hürriyet). For Frankfurt, the Tagesspiegel mentions about 8,000 demonstrators and, according to the Hesse interior minister, around a hundred left-wing extremists mixed into the march. Hürriyet also stresses that turnout fell short of expectations in Berlin and elsewhere, with some organisations having withdrawn their initial support; the student organisation BSK and the SPD youth wing, the Jusos, cited a lack of transparency. The Greens and Die Linke backed the rallies, according to the same outlet.
An evening of violence
Frankfurt saw the most serious incidents, according to ZDF: people entered shops in the city centre to steal sneakers and other goods, a weapons store was attacked and looted, shop windows were smashed and Molotov cocktails were thrown at police officers. Two weapons were seized, special forces (SEK) were deployed and the Zeil shopping street was closed. Police reported 54 arrests and more than 1,000 orders to leave the area; those arrested were between 13 and 29 years old. The 30 arrests initially reported by hessenschau became 54 in its next account. Police cited by the outlet distinguished looters from those involved in violence at the march's end; according to Poseck, most of those arrested were German citizens. Hesse's interior minister, Roman Poseck (CDU), spoke of more than 100 injured police officers, one of them seriously.
In Cologne, ZDF initially reported one injured person and five people taken into police custody. The Tagesspiegel mentioned about 200 people, some involved in the unrest. Police subsequently counted 23 officers injured over the whole night and distinguished Halloween groups with no link then established to the demonstrators. In Berlin, ZDF reports bottles, firecrackers and eggs being thrown; the Tagesspiegel reports 56 arrests and 27 lightly injured officers, while the rally at the Brandenburg Gate was described as almost trouble-free. The police description "not entirely peaceful" concerned the demonstration that ended on Prenzlauer Allee. Burning barricades were reported in Hamburg, and incidents in Hanover and Bremen; in Munich, the Tagesspiegel lists 84 complaints logged. These accounts cover different cities and scopes and must not be added together.
Reactions
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called the violence "Landfriedensbruch" (breach of the public peace), called for severe penalties and said, according to ZDF, that "violence-prone left-wing groups" and "migrantische Chaoten" ("migrant troublemakers") had "hijacked" the demonstrations; he judged the police operation "highly professional" and de-escalating. Roman Poseck put the number of violent people at 1,000 to 1,500, in his words "predominantly from a migrant milieu". Frankfurt's mayor, Mike Josef, pointed out that many of the police officers protecting the city themselves had a migration background and had been targeted. These attributions of origin are those of the officials cited; the sources consulted do not back them with figures.
Before the worst violence, Andreas Roßkopf (GdP) described the protests as very peaceful, while mentioning disorder by partly masked groups after some rallies. Researcher Florian Staudt warned against treating all demonstrators as suspects. Amadeo says the initiative had no influence on events after the rallies ended and announces a new mobilisation in about three weeks.
Key points
This article, dated 3 November, reviews the demonstrations of 31 October and violence during the following night, using sources from 31 October and 1 November. It is not an exhaustive account of subsequent developments. Figures for turnout, arrests and injuries vary by source and may be revised by official police statements.