Shopkeepers fear a wider backlash
For Erol Bekan, who owns a toy and household goods store on Bolongarostraße in the Höchst district, the distinction is clear: the peaceful protesters he knows should not be associated with those who later smashed windows, looted businesses and attacked police.
Bekan was shaken by the images of destruction in downtown Frankfurt. Beyond the damage itself, he worries that the attacks will reinforce prejudice against people with immigrant backgrounds. Police said the looters were predominantly young men with immigrant backgrounds, although most of the suspects arrested are German citizens.
He believes the rioters have helped the AfD politically by effectively campaigning on its behalf. A customer listening to the conversation argued that the other parties already do so much to benefit the AfD that it scarcely needs to campaign.
Mehmet Güngör, managing director of the Urfa restaurant on Albanusstraße in Höchst, shares the concern about collective blame. He hopes there will be no repeat of the violence and says the conduct of a few could damage many other people's reputations.
A peaceful march followed by violence
The October 31, 2026, demonstrations were organized by the youth initiatives Gen Z regelt and Generation Aufbruch. Thousands joined the largely peaceful march, seeking greater investment in education and health and opposing the planned reintroduction of conscription. Police dissolved the march in the early evening.
According to police and Hessian authorities, up to 1,500 violent participants were involved in the subsequent unrest on the Zeil. Police deployed up to 1,300 officers and arrested 54 people between the ages of 13 and 29. More than 100 officers were injured. Seventeen stores were damaged, including five that were looted.
The youth protests extended across roughly 30 German cities, drawing more than 65,000 people according to combined police figures. Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin also experienced riots. Nationwide, police reported at least 250 arrests and hundreds of investigations.
Residents stepped in to protect stores
Some people on the Zeil tried to stop the destruction. A video recorded Saturday evening shows a young woman outside a sporting goods store urging the rioters to stop. She told them their actions would achieve nothing and appealed to them to show that they were not like that.
Bekan says acquaintances of his confronted rioters to protect businesses they did not own. One was hit, he says. Those intervening also wanted to prevent the violence from being blamed on everyone with an immigrant background.
His own store is central to his life, Bekan says, and he wants people to live cooperatively rather than turn against one another.
Güngör likewise emphasized what the damaged businesses mean to their owners: they provide a living for people who work every day to support themselves and their families. His restaurant has operated in Höchst for nearly 21 years and has a good reputation. The family that owns it also participates in Initiative Pro Höchst.
The Handelsverband Hessen warned that the unrest had seriously harmed Frankfurt's image and called for a hardship fund to cover retailers' damage and lost sales. Frankfurt retailer Frank Albrecht reported sales losses of about 40 percent that day. Jost Wiebelhaus, whose running store was looted, said his chief worry was that customers might avoid downtown in the future.
Protest demands overshadowed
Nazim Alemdar, operator of the Yok Yok City-Kiosk and chairman of the Treffpunkt Bahnhofsviertel business association, objects to people being continually categorized by their origins. After more than four decades in Germany, he sees himself not as a migrant but as someone with responsibilities in the community. People with varied family roots are already doctors, teachers, politicians and business owners, he noted; they are all Frankfurt residents.
Alemdar condemns the violence while defending the fundamental right to demonstrate. He knows families who peacefully attended with their children, including to demand better education. Those concerns now receive little attention, he says, while burning barricades, broken windows and looting dominate the discussion.
He considers that unfair both to peaceful protesters and to uninvolved business owners and their employees. Laws must apply equally regardless of origin, he says, invoking Article 1 of Germany's Basic Law and its protection of human dignity.
Alemdar also wants to understand what drove the young perpetrators. Rather than simply demonizing or deporting them all, he says, people need to listen and examine the causes.
Wolfgang Retz, head of the Department of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Medical Center Mainz, said the group violence could be explained but not excused. He pointed to youthful impulsiveness and the diffusion of responsibility within crowds, while emphasizing that each person remains responsible for their actions.
Individual responsibility and the next protests
Frankfurt's municipal council representing foreign residents, the Kommunale Ausländerinnen- und Ausländervertretung (KAV), strongly condemned the riots and looting. Its chairman, Jumas Medoff, warned against treating everyone with an immigrant background as a suspect, saying that individual conduct, not origin, is what matters.
As of November 2, an 18-year-old Syrian national without a fixed residence was in pretrial detention, accused of stealing a weapon from the looted weapons store. Prosecutors and the Hessian Justice Ministry reported investigations into 54 named suspects for offenses including serious breach of the peace, dangerous bodily harm and assault on law enforcement officers.
Further demonstrations are planned for November 20, 2026. Gen Z regelt announced that it would participate in Europe-wide protests, while a broad alliance called for an International Youth Strike Day on that date. Hessian Interior Minister Roman Poseck of the CDU said he would examine legal measures, including a possible ban, against the planned protests.
