All that's needed is a bit of paraffin or some lighter fluid -- and a match. Tuck it under a tire and, after a few minutes, black smoke appears. Soon, the whole car is aflame -- by which time, the culprits have vanished into the night, leaving authorities helpless. In recent months, such scenes have been played out across Berlin almost every night.
The German capital has a lengthy track record for leftist violence. Stone throwing, Molotov cocktails and teargas has become a time-honored annual tradition on May 1, Germany's labor day. Periodic leftist demos have also gotten out of hand in the past.
But in recent weeks, the trend of combustable law breaking -- whether pseudo-political or not -- has reached new heights. Every morning brings news of fresh attacks on luxury cars or other vehicles, long a popular form of political expression among leftist militants in Berlin.
On Wednesday, arsonists attacked 10 vehicles belonging to a firm which delivers meals to old people's homes and children's day care centers. The company was attacked because it belonged to the "Globalplayer Sodexo ... which profits internationally by providing prisons and surveillance equipment," the Berliner Morgenpost daily reported, citing a blog posted after the attack. A day later, a Volkswagen and a BMW were left smoldering outside the home of the Christian Democrat politician Robbin Juhnke. Responsibility was later claimed by a militant leftist Web site which labeled Juhnke "a CDU hardliner" who "baited leftists and immigrants."
Other four-wheeled targets belonged to the express mail company DHL, which is disliked by leftist militants because it provides logistics support for the German military in Afghanistan.
In total 165 cars have been set on fire in Berlin since the start of the year, police say, far higher than the total for all of last year. And the number of arson attacks has hit record levels since the start of June. Left-wing militants are suspected to be behind the haphazard nocturnal trail of destruction, which includes torched cars, stones and paint bomb attacks on banks and job centers. There are many police investigations but rarely do they detain suspects -- largely because there are rarely witnesses. Most crimes are registered in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg neighborhood, long fertile ground for counter-culture. But the attacks on cars are now spreading across the city, to districts previously unaffected.
Big Squat
The latest rash of attacks coincides with the so-called "action weeks" organized by the radical left-wing. Propelled by anger against "acute gentrification" and the disappearance of open spaces, activists are staging a fortnight of mayhem, which kicked off on June 6. The string of events is to culminate on Saturday with a mass squatting of the now-out-of-use runways of the central Tempelhof airport, a massive stretch of land equivalent to 525 football fields. Enraged by official plans to use part of the area for luxury apartments, organizers plan to break in to the site, crossing the massive fences which line its perimeter.
In a blog, the Squat Tempelhof campaign says they want community a say in the usage of the large space. They expect numerous protesters from all walks of life, including locals, families, punks, international activists and dog owners. Up to a thousand police are to be sent to the site.
Amid the rancor, Berlin's left-wing mayor Klaus Wowereit is finding himself in a tight spot. Opposition politicians are accusing him, and other left-wing and green party politicians, of inaction verging on tacit compliance with the law breakers. The Secretary General of the CDU party in Berlin, Frank Henkel, spoke of a "state's capitulation to red terror." In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE he said: "The radical left is testing out the boundaries while the Senate passively looks on." The Berlin Senate is the city-state's executive body -- essentially a city council.
Similarly, the Berlin head of the business-friendly Free Democrats, Christoph Meyer, told SPIEGEL ONLINE: "One part of the Senate gives the left-wing extremists the feeling that they can do what they want."
But while there is rising pressure to counter the violence, the police face major hurdles. "The fact that fires can be started within seconds, means it is very difficult to catch the perpetrators," Berlin Interior Minister Ehrhart Körting told the Tagesspiegel, a Berlin daily. Meanwhile, the police complain that cost cutting since 2002 has left them sorely lacking in personnel. "We can hardly keep up with the usual surveillance and controls -- criminals have a low risk of being caught," said Klaus Eisenreich, who manages Berlin's police union, in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Clash on the Horizon
Ahead of the planned Tempelhof protest, political sparks are flying. Conservative and liberal politicians complain that some politicians have not distanced themselves enough from the leftist militants. Head of the Berlin Greens, Franziska Eichstädt-Bohlig, is among those in the thick of the controversy. She told the newspaper Die Tageszeitung that entering the defunct airport is not a violation of the law, but rather an act of political expression.
Meanwhile, Berlin's far-left Left Party has also been criticized for its proximity to the protesters. Although the party officially distanced itself from the planned protests, the Left Party politician Evrim Baba sent a positive message on what she dubbed as a "legitimate" protest. "I support the move against luxury flats and the elimination out of social housing on the grounds of Tempelhof airport," she said.
As the political crossfire continues, so does the run of car torchings. In the absence of more helpful advice, the police have come up with a simple recipe for owners of showy cars: Park them in safer parts of town.
jas -- With reporting by Torben Waleczek
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