Welcome to Hell – Hamburg St Pauli as a ‘Terrain of Resistance’?

The paper will examine a number of factors that played into the escalation dynamic around the demonstration Welcome to Hell in the district Hamburg St Pauli. The conflict around the holding of the g20 summit in the middle of the inner city of Hamburg wasn’t only characterised by an escalation dynamic that was fostered by a zero tolerance approach of the police but also by the (reactivation of a) construction of Hamburgs borough St Pauli as a terrain of resistance as many of the confrontations of police and protestors took place on the back ground of highly symbolic sites of the autonomist movement in Hamburg. But frustration with the permanent presence of police force and the resulting complications in the everyday life of the residents had made the summit enormously unpopular even before the first major protest actions took place. A perceived status of occupation of the districts neighbouring the venue of the G20 summit eventually contributed further to a bystander-effect which made riot-policing tactics even harder to deploy. The analysis of the paper relies on participant observation of the protest events in Hamburg in 2017 as well as qualitative content analysis of publications from activists and authorities as well as media coverage.