At the start of sales for the fireworks, shopping carts full of firecrackers and rockets are being pushed out of supermarkets in some places. You hear the first bangs on the streets. Elsewhere, urgent words can be heard: “Don’t attack us. Don’t shoot us with firecrackers, rockets or blank guns.”
The appeal comes from a policewoman, a police officer and a firefighter from Berlin in a video published on the platform X (formerly Twitter). “We’re going into action together. So that you can celebrate New Year’s Eve safely. And to help you if you need us,” they say. “Please respect our work. Give us enough space to do it. And follow our instructions.”
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Violence against emergency services: “sad everyday life”
The call is no coincidence: there have been repeated attacks on emergency services in recent years. They were shot at with rockets and pelted with firecrackers. It was particularly bad in Berlin in 2022. The quality of the attacks on emergency services last year was new, “for example when rescue workers were lured into suspected ambushes and attacked,” said Berlin police chief Barbara Slowik.
In the voluntary fire brigade service, even outside of New Year’s Eve, one in two people have experienced violence in the form of insults, insults, threats or physical attacks in the past two years (49.5 percent). This emerges from a survey presented by the German Fire Brigade Association and the Statutory Accident Insurance in Berlin on Thursday. 14 percent of the more than 6,500 firefighters surveyed in early to mid-November also said they had had fireworks thrown at them.
“In the police statistics, we also see a continuous increase in attacks against police, emergency services and fire departments,” said Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser about the results. “We see a brutalization in our society that has to worry us greatly. This is about attacks on people who work every day to ensure our safety under difficult, sometimes life-threatening conditions.”
“The number of violent incidents experienced against emergency services is too high – and is now a sad everyday occurrence,” said the President of the German Fire Brigade Association, Karl-Heinz Banse. Many of those affected still did not report the matter to the police because they did not believe that their concerns would be taken seriously.
“We finally have to react to this”
Emergency services also feel let down by politics. “Since the violent excesses last year in Berlin, but also in numerous places in the Ruhr area and even in the actually peaceful Bonn, everyone knows that something has come apart in our society. We finally have to react to this,” said Jochen Kopelke, chairman of the trade union Police (GdP), the “Rheinische Post” (Thursday).
“Why don’t politicians finally give the police the legal options to take consistent action against those involved in the violent excesses? And why don’t we have a ban on the sale of firecrackers on New Year’s Eve? Just like it applies all year round,” he said GdP chairwoman continued.
Fire department president Karl-Heinz Banse also says: “The state must ensure that those who do this are punished to the fullest extent of the law. There is still a problem there.”
Many politicians agree with him: “There needs to be more respect for others and consistent punishment of those who do not follow the rules of the game. There is a person behind every uniform,” said North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU).
In addition to the harsher penalties for those who abuse the special party pleasure, emergency services, but also medical representatives, environmental and animal rights activists and other organizations are calling for a general ban on the use of firecrackers. Among other things, they point out the risk of injury and the strain on hospitals.
For example, the Berlin Accident Hospital (UKB) has to significantly increase its operating room capacity on New Year’s Eve. “We assume that operations will take place continuously from 3 a.m. until late New Year’s Eve,” said a spokeswoman. On average, affected patients were treated in the ward for around ten days, with some of them having to go to the operating room several times. Many patients lost fingers or parts of them. But the face, eyes and ears are also injured.
Those seriously injured on New Year’s Eve are mostly male
Those seriously injured by fireworks are noticeably often male – according to an analysis by the UKB of around 150 patients who were treated as inpatients with serious hand injuries around the turn of the year from 2005/06 to 2022/23, the number was 97 percent. “They use bangs and fireworks more often and are more likely to engage in risky behavior when setting fires than women,” say experts from the Department of Hand, Replantation and Microsurgery. Alcohol consumption also plays a big role.
Despite the risks and the constant warnings, New Year’s Eve fireworks continue to boom. The Association of the Pyrotechnic Industry (VPI) expects demand for firecrackers and rockets to be similarly high as in 2022. The industry achieved record sales of 180 million euros. This year, the three-day sale exceptionally started on December 28th because New Year’s Eve falls on a Sunday.
Younger people in particular seem to be attracted to fireworks: 33 percent of 18 to 24-year-old respondents to a survey by the opinion research institute Yougov said they wanted to buy fireworks for New Year’s Eve this year. The value for all age groups is 18 percent.
Convince instead of prohibit
But not everyone is convinced of a general ban on firecrackers. Gerd Landsberg, general manager of the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, says: “We shouldn’t always work with bans, but with conviction,” said the general manager Gerd Landsberg.
Convince – that’s what the Berlin emergency services are trying to do with their joint video appeal against the misuse of fireworks. Also with a view to the consequences for the attackers themselves: “You are committing a criminal offense and face several years in prison.” The three people involved appeal: “So don’t ruin your future. And respect us, the people who are there for you and your families.”
X-Post from the Berlin Police and Fire Department Trade Association on the 2023 fireworks sale
