Contextual Background: Development of the Stuttgart 21 Protests

Stuttgart 21 (henceforth S21) is a controversial urban development and railway project in the city of Stuttgart, county of Baden-Württemberg in Germany that inspired a wave of protests between 2009 and 2011. The protesters criticised a range of issues, including the project's costs and the station's supposedly minor performance increase, and raised environmental concerns about demolishing part of the castle park and gardens surrounding the station. Years of protest ensued which reached a violent climax in 2010 during the so-called Black Thursday demonstration. The protest developed into a civil movement with considerable support from the middle class and eventually required extensive mediation. It was provisionally resolved with a referendum on 27 November 2011 when 58 per cent voted for the project to be carried on as planned. The conflict about S21 was also seen as a symbol of a political crisis and as a symptom of the general public's alienation from the political establishment (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Neue Feindbilder, 2 October 2010).

The Black Thursday on 30 September 2010 turned out to be the most violent escalation of a protest against the project in particular, but also more generally in the region of Baden- Württemberg in over forty years. At least 130 demonstrators – some of them children – as well as six police officers were injured when police tried to shut off the area around the Stuttgart castle gardens in preparation for uprooting trees. Thirty people reported offences by police and twenty-nine protesters were arrested (Tagesspiegel, 1 October 2010). The event even received coverage on the BBC website on 1 October 2010: ‘About 1,000 police were deployed to protect the site on Thursday, confronting several thousand demonstrators, German media reported. Several protesters were admitted to hospital, but their injuries were reported to be relatively light.’ It turned out that a protester would remain blind in one eye after being hit in the face by a water cannon. In 2015, the use of forceful measures by police such as water cannons was declared unlawful by the administrative court in Stuttgart. In retrospect, it is interesting to see how the events were evaluated and perspectivised by opposing sides shortly after they took place when there was still room for interpretation, and when the local government was struggling to establish its view of them.