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The stunt came just days after Germany marked the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Pro-Hamas demonstrators climbed Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate on Thursday, hanging a massive banner accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza and waving Palestinian flags.
Using a crane or cherry picker to reach the roof of the 18th-century landmark at Pariser Platz, the demonstrators unfurled a banner reading variations of “Never again genocide – Freedom for Palestine” and “Genocide: Never Again – Freedom for Palestine.”
Video footage shows protesters also lighting flares and chanting “Yalla, yalla, intifada.”
In a statement, Berlin police said three activists illegally climbed the monument while three others operated the crane from the square below.
In total, six people were detained after officers deployed a large force of around 75 police and rescue climbers to remove the protesters and take down the banner.
The stunt came just days after Germany marked the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Nazi mobs torched synagogues, looted Jewish-owned shops, and arrested some 30,000 Jews in 1938.
Against that backdrop, Jewish leaders condemned the sickening display atop Germany’s most famous monument.
“The banner on the Brandenburg Gate, shortly after the commemoration day for Pogrom Night, abuses the phrase ‘Never again’ and directs it against the only Jewish state,” Germany’s Central Council of Jews wrote on X.
“This action was accompanied by ‘intifada’ calls, which call for worldwide violence against Jews.”
The protest also highlighted a widening gap between the hard line of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government and shifting German public opinion on the Gaza war.
Merz has pushed back against demands for sweeping punitive measures such as a full arms embargo or suspending the EU-Israel trade agreement, and has so far resisted recognizing a Palestinian state.
But a recent ARD poll found that 63% of German respondents reject Israel’s military campaign and 55% want Berlin to back EU sanctions on Israel.
Meanwhile, a separate YouGov survey showed 62% of Germans describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide,” a term once reserved for the Nazi extermination of Europe’s Jews.
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