Police and Political Violence in the 1960s and 1970s: Germany and Italy in a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Notwithstanding the significant differences between the German and Italian police models (federal and civil vs. centralised and militarised), in both countries the confrontation with the protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s had a profound impact on police conceptions and public order strategies. Police forces in some German federal states (West Berlin) followed a hard line until the late 1960s, while in others (Munich, Hamburg) reforms to the Weimar-centred police intervention tactics took place beginning in the early to mid-1960s. In Italy, traditional police conceptions and strategies remained largely unchanged and re-emerged in 1968. Here, a movement from within the police led to the demilitarisation and unionisation of the state police in 1981. In both countries, fighting left-wing terrorism in the 1970s stimulated technical modernisation and enhanced the centralisation of the police. In critical response to police tactics, in the late 1970s Germany police matters were increasingly perceived as a concern not only of the state but of civil society—even if policing remained a highly contested terrain. In Italy, such matters largely remained state concerns in which only politicians and internal security specialists were entitled to intervene.

Notes

 [1] See for Germany: Thomas, Protest Movements in 1960s Germany.

 [2] della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State, 82.

 [3] Crenshaw, M. “Introduction: Reflections on the Effect of Terrorism.” In Terrorism, Legitimacy and Power: The Consequences of Political Violence, edited by M. Crenshaw. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982: 13.

 [4] See in detail Fürmetz et al. , Nachkriegspolizei; Weinhauer, Schutzpolizei in der Bundesrepublik; Busch et al. , Die Polizei in der Bundesrepublik; Weinhauer, “Sozialpartnerschaft, autoritärer Staat und Innere Sicherheit. Gewerkschaftliche Interessenvertretung in der Nordrhein-westfälischen Polizei von den 1950er Jahren bis Anfang der 1970er Jahre”, 224–46.

 [5] See Weinhauer, Schutzpolizei.

 [6] See ibid.: 274–77; Fillieule, Stratégies de la rue; Schweingruber, D. “Mob Sociology and Escalated Force: Sociology's Contribution to Repressive Police Tactics”.

 [7] Stiebitz, “Die Behandlung akuter Massen”, 42; Pulver, Polizei und akute Masse, 24.

 [8] See Werkentin, F. Die Restauration der deutschen Polizei; Weinhauer, Schutzpolizei.

 [9] “Die ‘Rolling Stones’ in sechs deutschen Städten”, 372.

[10] See Fürmetz, Schwabinger Krawalle.

[11] See “Rolling Stones”.

[12] See Kraushaar, Die Protest-Chronik 1949–1959; Fürmetz, “Polizei, Massenprotest und öffentliche Ordnung: Großeinsätze der Münchener Polizei in den frühen fünfziger Jahren”.

[13] See Sack, “Staat, Gesellschaft und politische Gewalt: Zur ‘Pathologie’ politischer Konflikte”; Busch et al. , Polizei.

[14] It is still to be analysed why two persons died during the Munich Easter Riots of 1968; see Thomas, Protest Movements, 174–76.

[15] See for Berlin Sack, “Staat, Gesellschaft und politische Gewalt” and for other German states Kleinknecht and Sturm, “Demonstrationen sind punktuelle Plebiszite. Polizeireform und gesellschaftliche Demokratisierung von den sechziger zu den achtziger Jahren”. See for Hamburg: Hamburger Abendblatt no. 154 (6 July 1966); meeting of police leaders 17 August 1966, (StAHH) Behörde für Inneres (BfI) 1025; report of Polizeieinsatzleitung 4 June 1967, StAHH BfI 163; report on police operations during the Shah's visit on 3 and 4 June 1967 dated 12 July 1967, StAHH BfI 163; moreover Asta-Dokumente II/1968, 18; Demonstrationen in Hamburg 1970, 8 f. (draft), StAHH BfI 1034.

[16] For views among the political elite, see: Deutscher Bundestag 169th session, 30 April 1968, 8989–9050. The views of the police are discussed in Weinhauer, Schutzpolizei, 296–332.

[17] Ibid., 328 f.

[18] Ruhnau, 90*.

[19] StAHH BfI 1036, report from 28 December 1967.

[20] In West Berlin in August 1967, a psychologist resigned after only two months because of the negative climate within the police. This underlines the anti-reform spirit of the West Berlin police forces; see Spiegel, 27 August 1967: 81.

[21] See Busch et al. , Polizei, ch. 9.

[22] Weinhauer, Schutzpolizei, 336–50. See on the philosophy of protest policing Winter, Politikum Polizei, chs 7/8.

[23] Hamburger Morgenpost no. 90 (17 April 1968).

[24] See the literature quoted in Weinhauer, “Terrorismus in der Bundesrepublik der Siebzigerjahre: Aspekte einer Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte der Inneren Sicherheit”; and Sturm, “Tupamaros München”, 99–133.

[25] See Weinhauer “Terrorismus”; Weinhauer et al., Terrorismus in der Bundesrepublik. Still very useful are the studies of Sack, “Staat, Gesellschaft und politische Gewalt” and Steinert, “Sozialstrukturelle Bedingungen”.

[26] See Die Anti-Terrordebatten im Parlament . Protokolle 1974–1978. Zusammengestellt und kommentiert von Vinke and Witt, 96.

[27] See for details Weinhauer, “Zwischen ‘Partisanenkampf’ und ‘Kommissar Computer’”.

[28] Der Spiegel 12 September 1977, 26; Der Spiegel 10 March 1975, 25.

[29] Der Spiegel 19 September 1977, 32.

[30] Stern 16 April 1978, 30.

[31] See Weinhauer, “Zwischen ”Partisanenkampf” und ”Kommissar Computer”.

[32] See Deutscher Bundestag, 8th election period, report from June 7, 1978.

[33] See Weinhauer, “Zwischen ‘Partisanenkampf’ und ‘Kommissar Computer’”, 262.

[34] Both series also appeared as books: see Bölsche, Der Weg in den Überwachungsstaat; Koch and Oltmanns, SOS—Freiheit in Deutschland.

[35] See for the following Weinhauer, “Terrorismus”, 238–41.

[36] See Geistig-politische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Terrorismus ; see also Spiegel 17 April 1978, 113–29, Stern 11 May 1978, 56–72.

[37] See Weinhauer, “Terrorismus”, 238–41.

[38] See as a contemporary account: “Berlin, Zürich, Amsterdam. Politik, Protest und Polizei”.

[39] See also Weinhauer, “Zwischen ‘Partisanenkampf’ und ‘Kommissar Computer’”, 262 f.

[40] For a definition of the ‘escalated force’ protest poling style, dominant in the western democracies of the period, see McPhail et al. , Policing Protest.

[41] On 9 January 1950, for instance, at a protest demonstration against a lock-out at a metal factory in Modena, the police opened fire, killing six people and wounding at least fifteen. The Carabinieri alone, representing less than half of the policemen deployed, fired 158 shots, according to an official report dated 21 January 1950 (ACS Rome, MdI, Gab. 1950–52, b. 16, f. 11249/2). On coercive police intervention in the 1940s and 1950s, see della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta, 47ff.

[42] See della Porta and Reiter, ibid., 99ff., for examples concerning the prohibition of demonstrations and rallies; the prohibition for speakers at rallies to touch certain themes; the prohibition of leaflets; etc.

[43] According to Italian law, the authorisation by the Ministry of Justice was necessary for any judicial proceedings against a police officer. Motions, presented also by moderate left-wing parties, to institute parliamentary commissions for investigating incidents like those in Modena were routinely refused by the majority. See ibid., 117f.

[44] Arista, “Al servizio della Patria”, 7. See della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta, 130ff., for a detailed discussion of police instruction in cold war Italy.

[45] Manganiello, “La P.S. al giudizio del tribunale del popolo? Elementi di valutazione”.

[46] Reform efforts internal to the state police are connected especially with police chief Angelo Vicari, who had started his career as attaché to the offices of first Mussolini, and then Badoglio and Romita. For these efforts, largely restricted to technocratic modernization and professionalization, see della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta, 182ff.

[47] See ibid., 170ff. Both parties also continued to disagree profoundly in their evaluation of incidents during street demonstrations: the Christian Democratic daily Il popolo (26 May 1967) called a demonstration against the Vietnam war dissolved by the police squalid and violent, while the socialist Avanti criticised the police for charging without warning and spoke of a manhunt.

[48] The demand for disarming the police in public order service was a traditional demand of the Italian Left, presented in the Italian parliament for the first time in 1905 by Filippe Turati. In 1950, it was still shared by the moderate left-wing parties, which, however, judged its introduction as premature. Throughout the postwar period, the socialist party repeatedly presented motions and draft laws for a disarming of the police in public order service, for the last time in 1964. See ibid., 122, 164ff.

[49] Ministero dell'Interno, Direzione generale della P.S., 318f., 325.

[50] Ibid., 329f., emphasis in the original.

[51] Ministero dell'interno, Direzione generale della P.S, 344 (emphasis in the original). The same regulations define armoured cars and tanks as particularly suitable for dissolving menacing assemblies or crowds.

[52] See, among others, Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder; Crainz, Il paese mancato; Marino, Biografia del sessantotto.

[53] On the ‘strategy of tension’, see Ferraresi, Minacce alla democrazia.

[54] Quoted in Paloscia, Polizia, 208ff. On the vagueness of the Italian legislation on the use of firearms by police officers, see della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta, 125f.

[55] Alessi, “Disarmo della polizia nei servizi di ordine pubblico”, 493.

[56] In 1969, one police officer was also killed at a street demonstration; but as the subsequent judicial inquiry ascertained (see “Via Larga, 1969.” Quale giustizia no. 5–6 (1970): 66–80), the cause was accidental and not attributable to the protesters.

[57] On 12 May 1977, Giorgiana Masi was killed at a demonstration celebrating the anniversary of the laic victory in the referendum on divorce, probably by a shot fired by a policeman in civilian clothes. This was the last time a demonstrator was killed in Italy until Carlo Giuliani's death in Genoa in 2001.

[58] For examples, see della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta, 213ff.

[59] See della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence and the State, ch. 3.

[60] See, for example, the personal recollection in Passerini, Autobiography of a Generation, 111. The death of protesters in particular was interpreted as proof of the impossibility of peaceful change. See della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta, 267.

[61] See Marino, Biografia del sessantotto, 397f.

[62] Passerini, Autobiography of a Generation, 135.

[63] Between 1969 and 1973, the extreme right accounted for 95% of episodes of political violence, in 1974 for 85%, and in 1975 for 78%. The extreme right was responsible for 68% (758) of the 1119 victims of terrorism, and of 53% (191) of the 350 victims killed. See della Porta and Rossi, Cifre crudeli, 25, 59.

[64] The overwhelming number of deaths caused by right-wing terrorism is connected with these massacres. Excluding them, the responsibility of the Right for overall victims falls to 16%, and for deaths to 23%. See ibid., 59.

[65] della Porta, “Institutional Responses to Terrorism: The Italian Case”, 167f.

[66] See ibid., 141.

[67] Pasquino, “I soliti ignoti: gli opposti estremismi nelle analisi dei Presidenti del Consiglio (1969–1985)”, 93–117. One of the reasons for this underestimation can be attributed to the fact that only towards the mid-1970s did the Red Brigades embrace the strategy of the ‘attack on the heart of the state’.

[68] See della Porta, “Institutional Responses to Terrorism”, 156.

[69] In addition, the involvement of high-ranking secret service officials in right-wing activities had led to a restructuring of the internal secret service in 1974, with the new structure reaching operational functionality only in 1979–80.

[70] See della Porta and Rossi, Cifre crudeli.

[71] See, for example, the life histories of ex-terrorists, many of them in their early teens in 1968, presented by Passerini, Autobiography of a Generation, 135ff. On recruitment processes to underground organisations, see della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence and the State, chs 6 and 7.

[72] For the abandonment of the defence of protester rights by the communists, see della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta, pp. 257ff.

[73] See della Porta, “Institutional Responses to Terrorism”, 156ff.

[74] See ibid., p. 162, for the severe criticism of the jurisprudence of the ‘emergency period’. The police crackdown on the extremist autonomous groups seems to have led to a big jump in the recruitment to terrorist organisations. See ibid., p. 162f.

[75] Its commander, carabiniere general Dalla Chiesa, had to report only to the Interior Minister, and while the setting up of his unit was highly publicised, its activity was shrouded in complete secrecy. See Stortoni-Wortmann, “The Police Response to Terrorism in Italy from 1969 to 1983”, 147–71.

[76] See the interviews with police officers in della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta.

[77] On the movement, see ibid., pp. 268ff.

[78] In contrast with Germany or Great Britain, however, figures specialising in dialogue and de-escalation did not emerge in the Italian police forces, even when de-escalating tactics became dominant in the 1980s and 1990s. On the informality of de-escalation strategies in Italy, see della Porta and Reiter, Polizia e protesta, 305f.

[79] Di Francesco, Un commissario, 88.

[80] See della Porta et al. , Globalization from Below, ch. 6.

[81] For German police, see Weinhauer, “Staatsbürger mit Sehnsucht nach Harmonie”: Gesellschaftsbild und Staatsverständnis in der westdeutschen Polizei (der 1960er Jahre)”.