Berlin Riote.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 19, 9 November 1910, Page 7

Berlin Riote.

100 POLICEMEN INJURED. LONDON, October 2. During this week Berlin has been the scene of strike riots of an unusually violent character. The trouble centres around the depots of Messrs. Kupfer and Company, tlie largest coal firm in Berlin, in the Moabit district in the north-west quarter of the city. The strike of Messrs. Kupfer’s employees has been going on for a considerable time, and there have been frequent scuffles between strikers and strike-breakers, in consequence of which for several days the company’s wagons have been escorted by police. On Saturday there was a serious conflict between riotous strikers, aided by the mob, and the police guarding the wagons. This seems to have been a preliminary trial of strength for a pitched battle.

On Monday the ferocity of the crowd was remarkable, and isolated policemen were very roughly handled. Two policemen standing at a street corner were attacked. One emptied his revolver into his assailants, and then made his escape through an adjoining saloon, the keeper of which was ill-treated and his place wrecked by the rioters in revenge. The other policeman was knocked senseless, and picked up covered with blood by the owner of a neighbouring house, who dragged him into safety just as the hooligans were returning to finish him. The house was besieged for half-an-hour before the police arrived and drove off the mob.

Women among the crowd were conspicuous for their daring and ferocity. The police complain that the strikers charged with an advance guard of women, and even children, in front, so that the police were unable to. use their weapons. Water, sand, and all sorts of missiles were poured from windows upon the heads of the police, whose difficulties were intensified through the strikers being able when hard pressed to escape into houses and drinking saloons, whence they got clear away, or where they renewed the combat from the windows.

Preferring to operate in the darkness, the rioters smashed the street lamps. For an unexplained reason, the rioters appear to be animated by peculiar animosity against the local Lutheran Church of the Reformation. The pastor was seen in a passing- tramcar on his way to his parsonage. “Drag him out,” “Out with the parson,” was the yell which went up, and hooligans stopped the car and boarded it. The clergyman .tried to escape in the crowd, but he was quickly recognised and followed. He reached the parsonage door, which; fortunately, was open, just in time to escape violence. The attack on the church followed. A favourite missile of the strikers is supplied by the so-called mosaic paving, consisting of small stone centres, which are easily torn up.

The Chief of Police has issued an Older that in case of further attacks the police are to make full use of their revolvers and sabres, and if the police are attacked from windows they are to use their firearms without hesitation. The police commander on the spot has also issued a warning that in case of a recurrence of rioting it will be impossible to spare women and children who conio between the combatants and the police. The district is now held by three hundred police, mounted and on foot. The streets where the worst rioting occurred are closed by strong cordons, and all access to Messrs. Kupfer’s yards is barred. The conflict between police and rioters continued at intervals on Tuesday. At seven o’clock on that evening there was a fresh collision with a body of 3000 rioters, who were dispersed by a sabre charge in which 15 mounted men took part. Later in the evening another encounter with a mob of about 500 persons took place. As the rioters began to throw bottles, coal, bricks and broken glass at the policemen out of the windows of the houses, the latter retaliated by firing with their Browning pistols at the windows. One of the rioters, at about one o’clock on Tuesday morning, after the police had withdrawn, collected a heap of wood, over which he poured a quantity of paraffin, and then set light to the pile. Fire engines were summoned, and the firemen succeeded in extinguishing the blaze, although they had to be protected by police, While doing their work they were the objects of a continual shower of missiles from the windows of some of the houses. The “ Lokal Anzeiger ” states that, one hundred policemen were wounded in the rioting, but it is impossible yet to esti-

mate the number among the mob, which is undoubtedly very large. Revolvers were more freely used by both police and rioters, many of the latter firing down on the police from windows. A statement inspired by the police makes it clear that the authorities ere convinced that the roughs and rowdies who form the rank and file of the rioters are organised and directed by persons well versed in the tactics of street revolutions. The sudden appearance and disappearance of the mobs, combined with rushes in response to a signal, generally in the form of a yell, and the deliberate attempts to entiee the police into streets where pitfalls were prepared for them, point unmistakably to this conclusion. Thus in the Rostockerstrasse lights were first extinguished and the roadway sown with broken flower-pots and earthenware, so that mounted police could not enter the street. Then the attention of the police was attracted by yelling or by lighting a bonfire, and men were told off With house keys in their hands, to lock the doors after the rioters had escaped into the houses.

The strike originated in Messrs. Kupfer’s yard, the men demanding an increase of six pfennigs an hour for coal heavers, and three marks a week for drivers. The firm of Kupfer, which is controlled by Herr Stennes, one of the greatest coal magnates, refused on the ground that existing contracts did not allow an increase of expenditure. Troubles began when strike-breakers . from Alsaco drove out of the yard, under protection of the police. Crowds of the strikers, who number 285, with their sympathisers, gathered on the pavements and jeered, whereupon one of the strike-breakers, who was driving, drew a revolver and fired twice amongst the crowd. His arrest was demanded of a police lieutenant, who in reply ordered the mounted police to charge, and bloodshed ensued.