War of words in liberal Hamburg after protesters clash with police

Tension high as police stop and search hundreds of activists in 'danger zone' around Reeperbahn after December violence

Hamburg's reputation as a liberal city where police, punks and prostitutes happily co-exist has taken a heavy knock after a succession of violent clashes resulted in police taking the unprecedented step of declaring a large area around the Reeperbahn a "danger zone".

Hundreds have been stopped and searched after clashes between police and protesters at the end of December. The protesters – some demonstrating against gentrification, others pursuing an anarchist agenda – said they were kettled, pepper-sprayed and attacked with batons. Police said they were pelted with rocks, firecrackers and pavement slabs.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported "scenes reminiscent of a civil war". The US embassy issued warnings to American citizens travelling to the city.

The danger zone has since been reduced to three "danger islands", but not before 190 people were banned from the area, 65 detained and five arrested.

Much of the controversy centres on events at the Davidwache police station, a 100-year-old institution beloved by many in the city, where Paul McCartney spent a night after being arrested for arson in 1960.

Ulrich Wagner, the officer in charge of the area around the Reeperbahn, blamed "an unprecedented attitude of violence against the state and police" among leftwing activists. A line was crossed when three of his officers were targeted by a group of up to 40 hooded attackers outside the station, he said, with one policeman suffering a broken jaw.

Since the attack, even the more seasoned leftist radicals in the area had privately distanced themselves from a younger, less political generation mainly bent on violence and confrontation, Wagner told the Guardian.

Down the road at the Rote Flora cultural centre, which has been the focus of leftwing activism in Hamburg since it was first squatted in 1989, Klaus Alfijesky and Lotta Kalweit accused the police of provoking the clashes with months of aggressive controls in the area.

They said reports of the attack on the Davidwache had been skewed to demonise the left. Initial reports suggested the attack took place inside the police station itself.

Some witnesses have claimed the attackers were drunken football hooligans without a political motive. "The police is blatantly spreading lies about the incident, and it has political motives for doing so," Kalweit said.

Hamburg used to be seen as a Social Democrat stronghold. In 2001 the SPD lost its grip on power – partly, some commentators felt, because it seemed too soft on security issues. Though the Social Democrats are back in charge of the city, many accuse the mayor, Olaf Scholz, of being too traumatised by the previous defeat to establish a more lenient line. The law that allowed the police to establish the danger zone was introduced during conservative rule in 2005 and remains untouched.

But many feel the real reason for tensions in Hamburg has been obscured by the recent war of words. The demonstrations before Christmas also included large groups of activists from Recht auf Stadt, an umbrella group opposing gentrification.

"Hamburg is a good example of a city that has gradually lost its industrial status, and is now desperately trying to compete with Berlin for wealthy mobile professionals", said Christoph Twickel, a local journalist active in the movement.

One reason Hamburg citizens took to the streets in the first place, he said, was the fear that their city may go the way of London or Paris, with low earners pushed to the edges of the city. "In the industrial age, clashes between the privileged few and the disadvantaged took place around the factories. Now, those battles are fought over access to our inner cities."

Shortly before start of the uprisings, local authorities ordered the eviction of the Esso buildings on the Reeperbahn, a former social housing block occupied mainly by elderly people and those on low incomes. Some accuse the city of looking on as the owner allowed the building to decay until it was close to collapse – "a classic gentrification tactic", said the activist Steffen Jörg.

Surprisingly, perhaps, their sentiments were echoed within the Davidwache. "Yes, I can understand that people are worried about the area losing its charm," Wagner said. "I love St Pauli, it's an area with a social conscience." For now, he can count himself lucky: his police station is one of the few listed buildings on the Reeperbahn.