Wasserschlacht 2008

Dirty Diapers Soil Berlin's Annual Food Fight

The latest Wasserschlacht battle between the inhabitants of two proud -- and now administratively unified -- neighborhoods of Berlin was held on Sunday. What has traditionally been a food fight has expanded its offerings to include fish and dirty diapers.

Little in life is uglier than a city at war with itself. Sunday witnessed the latest battle Berlin has waged against itself when representatives of the districts of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg met on the Oberbaumbrücke bridge to pelt each other with food and foam-rubber clubs.

The event held almost every July since 1998 is known as Wasserschlacht, or "water fight," but the weapons are more primitive and disgusting than the name would suggest. Indeed, what started out as a battle fought with flour and water has grown to include eggs, fruits and vegetables. The only rule is that they cannot be fresh -- only rotten or cooked. There are rumors that the sides went as low as to arm themselves this year with salted herring and dirty diapers.

Participants -- oftentimes numbering a little less than 1,000, according to the event's organizers -- also don protective outfits and wear helmets and shields to protect themselves from the incessant whacking of foam-rubber swords and clubs.

"It all started when the city administration decided to unite the two districts," Hauge Stiewe, the organizer of Friedrichshain's forces, says on a documentary about the annual event. "They didn't ask people what they wanted. So we thought: Let's put the Kreuzbergers on one side and the people from Friedrichshain on the other and arm them with eggs, tomatoes and water. And whoever won would be the master of the district."

"The whole thing," Stiewe adds, "is an expression and demonstration of our desire not to be merged. So let's make war against each other."

The warring districts lie on opposite sides of Berlin's Spree river. The district of Kreuzberg was famous particularly in the 1980s as an alternative haven and mixture of Turks, punks, musicians and squatters. Friedrichshain, a part of the former East Germany and once divided from Kreuzberg by the river and the Berlin Wall, is now the home of Berlin's teeming, expat-infused, leftist counter-culture. After years of planning, the two were merged into the single administrative district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in 2001.

"This is our little way to meet up with each other each year," one of this year's participants told SPIEGEL TV, "and express our love for each other."

The sides meet in the middle of the bridge separating the traditional districts and attempt to beat, scare, push, intimidate and grosser-than-gross their opponents back to their side of the bridge.

The Friedrichshain side has yet to lose one of the encounters. On Monday, the newspaper Die Tageszeitung mused on why Kreuzberg -- whose population profile closely overlaps with that of the paper's readership -- has suffered this shameful series of defeats: "The people of Kreuzberg have become individualists. Strategic thinking is alien to them. And it lacks social cohesion." Designers in polo shirts and sunshades have moved in, the newspaper laments, people who have no desire to fight for their district. "That's what's killing this district."

Each side has its own smaller teams of combatants. On the Kreuzberg side, for example, there are the Kreuzberger Landwehr ("Kreuzberg Militia") and the Kreuzberger Patriotische Demokraten/Realistisches Zentrum ("Kreuzberg Patriotic Democrats/Realistic Center"). For Friedrichshain, among others, there are the Total Krasse Kreuzberg-Gegner ("Totally Wicked Kreuzberg Opponents") and the Anarcho-Zynistische-Offensive-Berlin-Fraktion Friedrichshain ("Anarcho- Offensive Berlin Faction Friedrichshain").

Things have been known to get a bit out of hand, such as when float-like storming towers and other vehicles have been set aflame. Event organizers have also run into trouble with the law for holding the event without a permit. In 2003, police blocked the event from happening as the opposing forces were gathering on the bridge, only to be pelted themselves with the stockpiles carried by disappointed would-be participants. In 2005, the event was held once again, but legal disputes led to the event's cancellation in 2006 and 2007. This year's event was –- fittingly enough –- sponsored by Alba, a major waste disposal company in the city.

jtw/spiegel