Die Ritterinnen

On Labour Day 1987, a riot broke out in Kreuzberg which gave this west-Berlin district its legendary reputation - a reputation which has prevailed right up to the present day. During the night of 1 May, the Berlin police used force to try and break up a street party - and triggered off a riot in which old and young, Turks, Germans, anarchists and ordinary citizens battled shoulder to shoulder to repel state authority.The riot ended with the police in retreat, a supermarket in flames and one more problem for Berlin's Senator for Internal Affairs. How was he to keep a district in check when the inhabitants were clearly hell-bent on protesting against the Queen's and Ronald Reagan's visits as well as the International Monetary Fund conference? Kreuzberg's anarchists included a group of women living in an apartment in Ritterstrasse, or "Knight Street". These "female knights", as they were known, fought any and all manifestations of patriarchy with exactly the same verve they applied to organizing resistance to the IMF meeting. And then: the wall came down, the world changed and nothing was the way it used to be anymore.