German cities calm after May Day rioting (1st Lead)

May 2, 2010, 11:32 GMT

Berlin - The German city of Hamburg tallied the damage and injuries Sunday after two nights of May Day political mayhem in a central district claimed by militant leftists as their home.

Berlin was calm again after about two hours of skirmishing Saturday evening in its Kreuzberg neighbourhood between riot police and leftists who assailed the police with stones, bottles and fireworks.

Violence, including brawls between leftists and rightists, anarchists stoning the police and rampages inside banks, has been an annual May Day ritual for two decades in Berlin and Hamburg. Police have been criticized in the past for letting this happen.

In Hamburg, police hosed down demonstrators with water jets mounted on trucks late Saturday. As the violence ebbed, two hours after midnight, police said they were holding eight rioters and had briefly detained 21 others.

The initial injury toll was 18, including five police and a fireman who was hit by a stone as his brigade tried to extinguish a bonfire in the Schanzenviertel, a district of 19th century apartment houses and narrow streets where leftists oppose redevelopment.

Two banks had their plate-glass windows broken and the interiors vandalized. The rioters broke into a self-service chemist and looted it, and overturned parked cars and set them on fire.

In Berlin, one policeman was injured, but city police said the Saturday violence had been more subdued than a year ago, when 500 police were hurt. Police were more pro-active this year, seizing stone-throwers immediately and using batons to push back mobs.

In the city of Nuremberg, police said 13 officers had been injured Saturday in a clash with leftist demonstrators, leading to eight detentions. When the crowd attacked an officer, riot police tried to defend him and were hit with cobblestones, bottles and fence staves.