Chaos Days

1980s

The predecessors of the Hanoverian Chaos Days were the Saturday meetings in Wuppertal that were regularly held in 1982. The reason for this was an attempt by the city administration to ban local punks from gathering in groups at the fountain in the city center. This led to the fact that now not only Wuppertals, but also punks from other cities began to gather there. These events are called Wuppertal Punk Meetings. In 1983, it came to street clashes between punks and police, and a year later there was a massacre between punks and right-wing skinheads with a large number of victims.

The first day of chaos can be considered September 18, 1982. A rare recording of Jello Biafra ruft zum Chaostag auf (Jello Biafra calls for Chaos Day) confirms that Jello Biafra during the legendary performance of Dead Kennedys two days earlier - September 16, 1982 in Bad Honnef Kurzal , clearly called for Chaos Days, which secured a place of honor in the planned punk card index.

The first official Chaos Days took place in early June 1983, after it became known about the punk card index. It should have registered all persons of a defiant appearance, even if they had not committed any crimes and disturbances in public order. The idea of ​​such a large congress of skins and punks was to collect as many "applicants for a card" as possible to show the absurdity of the institution of such a card file.

On the first weekend of August 1984 and 1985, punks and other left groups gathered in Hanover. These meetings were originally held under the motto of Punks & Skins United (community of punks and skins). However, the latter were soon dragged into a right-wing channel, which led in 1984 to fierce showdowns between punks and skins in the city center. After the showdown, the punks returned to the Glocksee Independent Youth Center (UJZ), where they were surrounded by police. In the courtyard, police used tear gas, which led to a panic and the defeat of the driven-out punks of a cafe belonging to the youth center.

In 1989, International Chaos Days were planned. Nevertheless, fewer punks arrived at these meetings than expected.

Since the mid-1980s, many punk meetings, especially in Hanover, have been called Chaos Days, but they had nothing to do with those days. In 1987, about 1,000 punks from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and England gathered in the city of Lubbeck (North Rhine-Westphalia) in order to peacefully and calmly celebrate the Bierbrunnerfest. Two years later, using the right of the head of the organization to implement the internal rules in office premises and buildings, beer spills in the brewery were made selective.

1990s

After 1985, it was relatively calm, but in 1994 and in August 1995, the Days of Chaos revived. They stood out with fierce skirmishes of punks and local youth with the police. In Hanover Chaos Days, from 4 to 6 August 1995, street battles broke out between approximately 2,000 participants and 3,000 police and federal border guards, resulting in 179 injuries. 220 participants in Chaos Days have been charged for various offenses. The looting of the Penny supermarket in the northern part of the city led to chaos on the roads, as well as to a commotion by residents and the media, who spoke about the situation almost similar to the civil war. On August 5, the action moved to the Linden-Nord region, where at that time the alternative open-air festival Fahrmannfest Hannover (ferryman's holiday) was held. After the attack on the beer tray with the words “free beer for everyone!”, The police stormed the festival.

Since, according to the punks, the press had predicted a state of emergency in advance, deliberately exaggerating and equating it with a civil war, they had the motto “the press tells us to obey.” According to some reports, the police resorted to a “de-escalation strategy” that provoked the opposite negative reaction, for which then Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder and Interior Minister Gerhard Glogowski were sharply criticized.

In 1996, an unprecedented number of police officers were employed to prevent the Days of Chaos. More than 10 thousand officials throughout Hanover were supposed to crush in the bud any attempt to organize the Chaos Days. They succeeded, given that there were less than a thousand punks, and in many areas of the city police were on duty at every corner. Critics ironically called it "Days of Order." ^{[1] [2] [3]}

2000s

During the Expo-2000 exhibition in Hanover, the resumption of the Chaos Days, which have not reached such proportions since 1995, was announced. ^[4] The initiator Karl Nagel created a popular parody site to attract more people, which ultimately met his expectations, despite the fact that there were a lot of young people in the city during the Expo exhibition and despite the fact that the police were about a hundred arrests have been carried out. ^[five]

From August 3 to 5, 2001, Chaos Days were announced in Cottbus and Dortmund . A relatively small number of youth gathered in Cottbus; According to reports in Cottbus, 58 people were taken into custody for a short time. About 700 punks gathered in Dortmund, of which more than 500 were arrested after brief skirmishes.

In 2002, Chaos Days were to be held from 2 to 4 August in Munich . According to media reports, they were planned in protest against the candidate for chancellor from the CDU / CSU (Christian Democratic Union / Christian Socialist Union) Edmund Stoiber . Munich police reacted to the announcement of the Chaos Days as a "strategy of intolerance." They just grabbed everyone who at least looked like punk, so the Chaos Days practically did not take place. A special order forbade "any actions that could be associated with the Days of Chaos." The yellow press supported this approach ( Bild : “the punks attack on the Munich fortress is repelled!”).

From August 5 to 7, 2005, the Days of Chaos again took place in Hanover. About 300 punks gathered in the city. By August 5, nearly 90 punks had been detained by police. At a campaign demonstration by the Anarchist Pogo-Party of Germany on August 6 at Krepke Square, the police strictly forbidden to bring alcohol and come with dogs. After the very first skirmishes in the central part of the city and at the University of Hanover , the police intervened in the events, surrounded most of the present punks at the central railway station building, kept them there for a little more than three hours, after which they were detained for short (up to 8 hours) periods .

From August 4 to 6, 2006, about 350-400 punks, skins, and their friends gathered in Hanover, many of whom were dressed in neutral clothes. In this regard, about 1,000 police officers additionally went on duty, reinforced outfits were sent to patrol the city center.

On June 9, 2007, about 200 punks, skins, and autonomies including Karl Nagel gathered in the town of Wuppertal- Elberfeld to mark the 25th anniversary of the Days of Chaos. About 300 police officers eventually arrested 47 punks, 42 punks were released on bail, and 150 were released. During the riots, one officer and several punks were injured.

In 2013, Chaos Days was planned to be held in Heidelberg . ^[6] Karl Nagel claims that in 2022 he would like to show again “what real chaos is” by organizing the Days of Chaos again. ^[7]

In 1996, the film "War of the Worlds - Days of Chaos in Hanover 1995" was released, which quickly acquired the status of a cult in the punk scene. The film includes a selection of news releases and fragments of feature films.

In 2007, director Tarek Ehlail0 made an independent film about the Chaos Days - We Are Punks episodes, which featured real punks who actually took part in the Chaos Days. The picture itself is not related to real events, rather it is ironic -satiricheskuyu attempt to explain the absurd combination of coincidences that led to the emergence of such a phenomenon. ^[8] Based on the movie of the same name book of Moses Arndt (Mose Arndt). The documentary is given through scenes containing interviews with punks who took ESTATE s in the Days of chaos. The film premiered October 3, 2008 in Hannover.

During the punk concert, which took place on the day of the film’s premiere, there were some clashes in the northern part of the city between punks and policemen.

By the conservative-bourgeois side, the Days of Chaos (especially the early ones) were perceived as insanity. Political goals were difficult to recognize, it was not a political demonstration, but ritual violence, it was compared with May Day riots in Berlin (Berlin-Kreuzberg).

On the left and other alternative parties, these events were criticized for the lack of content and methods of protest that terrified ordinary people. According to critics, these meetings, although they went beyond the framework of the law and order policy, were to a greater extent a thrill-seeking youth no more than an excellent way to spend time in search of adventure.

From the perspective of the pogo-anarchists, the purpose of the Chaos Days was initially primarily to provocations aimed at ending repressions against punks and infringing on their rights.

Since the 1990s, there has been a tendency among politicians and citizens to artificially exaggerate various myths about the dangers of the Days of Chaos.

• Oliver Herbertz (2011): Die Organization von Chaostagen . Analyze zur Konstruktion von Objektivität. in: Betz, Gregor / Hitzler, Ronald / Pfadenhauer, Michaela (Hrsg.): Urbane Events. Wiesbaden: VS, S. 245-260.

• “Order is bad,” an article by Karl Nagel's co-initiators (German)
• Klaus Frick “from pogo to stroke” (Ein Reigentanz zum Knuppeltakt) April 28, 2001 (German)
• Professor Heiko Gailing (Institute of Political Sciences, University of Hanover) “punk as a political provocation: Days of chaos in Hanover - a policy of useful popular feeling” (German)