In the western tabloid press, they are considered a glamorous dream couple who give Persia a modern face:Shah Reza Pahlavi and his wife Farah Diba. In the spring of 1967, the imperial couple visited the Federal Republic. In Rothenburg ob der Tauber they watch folk dances, in Munich they visit a collection of paintings and in Bonn Chancellor Kiesinger receives the Shah for talks. Then there are violent protests in Berlin against the state visit. The police operation against the demonstrators culminated in the shooting of the student Benno Ohnesorg. At the end of their round trip, the Persian ruling couple visited Hamburg on June 3, 1967. There are also protests there - and a brutal police operation.
State visit under police protection
The security precautions are extremely strict, the police force is enormous:30,000 officers are deployed nationwide, more than ever before during a state visit. They blocked freeways, cleared inner cities and checked exiles everywhere. Because the authorities fear protests and even consider an assassination attempt to be possible. The Shah is a close ally of the West in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. But the Iranian opposition and left-wing students regard him as a tyrant who leads a life of luxury at the expense of the impoverished population, with massive economic and military aid from the USA.
The day before:street battles in Berlin
In Berlin, a police officer shoots the student Benno Ohnesorg at the demonstration against the Shah's visit.In Hamburg, too, the authorities have deployed thousands of police officers. Frogmen examine the bridges in the city center for explosive devices, security forces guard the airport with submachine guns and cordon off streets. The atmosphere is tense. Because the day before, the protests against the Shah's visit had escalated in West Berlin. Iranian secret service agents hit demonstrators with wooden slats. And the police used water cannons, cavalry squadrons and batons in an extremely brutal manner against the protesters. An officer shot the student Benno Ohnesorg from close range in the head.
First protests on the Rathausmarkt
The Hamburg police are cracking down. A demonstrator who protested against the Shah is carried away in the Rathausmarkt.That is why angry students with black mourning flags and whistles mingled with the onlookers when the imperial couple pulled up in front of Hamburg City Hall at noon on June 3rd. They shout "Democracy - yes, dictatorship - no!" and "Murderers!". While the Shah and his wife ate Büsumer shrimps, truffled fillet roast and Vierländer strawberries with whipped cream at the Senate reception, the police violently broke up the demonstration on the Rathausmarkt. To the applause of the spectators, they break flags, knock the whistles out of the mouths of the demonstrators and arrest a few. They still have the situation under control.
Thousands demonstrate in front of the Opera
In the afternoon, a harbor tour is on the programme. Then the Shah visited the aircraft factory in Finkenwerder, and the Empress the Barlach House in Jenisch Park. Only a few disturbers mingle with the numerous spectators. But when the imperial couple drove up to the State Opera at 7:07 p.m., the situation came to a head. Thousands of people, especially students, are gathered in front of the barriers at Dammtorwall. Among them are protesters waving black flags. Shouts are raised:"Down with the Shah!" An egg splatters on the side window of the black Mercedes 600.
Cavalry squadron spreads fear and terror
While Reza Pahlavi was receiving the ovations of the audience a little later in the first tier of the opera next to Mayor Herbert Weichmann, the command suddenly sounded on Dammtorstraße:"Horses march!" Without warning, the cavalry squadron burst into the crowd, as eyewitnesses later reported. Panic breaks out. Demonstrators and onlookers flee screaming in the direction of Stephansplatz, pursued by the police riders, who drive the people in front of them with their horses, press them against the walls of the houses and kick them in the back from the saddle.
On the evening of June 3, the police used their cavalry squadron against the demonstrators on Dammtorstrasse.Police officers rush forward behind them. The writer Peter Rühmkorf, who was among the demonstrators, later put it on the record:"Police officers advanced on the crowd with rubber truncheons drawn, people fell, police officers threw themselves on those lying on the ground." Meanwhile, in the State Opera, graceful ballet dancers in checked skirts float across the stage to the sounds of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's "Scottish Symphony".
Traffic chaos at Stephansplatz
Traffic comes to a standstill in front of the main post office, firecrackers explode, and a horse rises, whinnying. People covered in blood wander between the cars on the Gorch-Fock-Wall, even fleeing over radiator hoods in their fear, while a group of demonstrators chants from the entrance to Planten un Blomen:"Murder pack, murder pack!"
The Philharmonic Orchestra is now playing scenes from an opera by Donizetti, the prima ballerina triumphs, as the Hamburger Abendblatt later reported, "with tingling sequences of steps". There is special applause for long jumps and "shimmering Entrechats", crossing your feet several times while jumping.
On the street, at the same time, the demonstrators dare to advance when the horsemen retreat and flee again towards the war memorial when the police officers advance. The situation calms down only gradually, and more and more students are migrating towards the town hall, where the Shah is later expected to attend another reception.
Rubber clubs and punches at City Hall
There, one hour before midnight, the police officers mercilessly hunted down the demonstrating students again. Dozens are beaten with batons and fists and then arrested. Apparently, Iranian security officials are also intervening, with the approval of the police. The police officers do not answer questions about their service numbers, and a police leader laconically responds to the appeal for guaranteed freedom of assembly with the sentence "The Basic Law does not interest him," a demonstrator later reported. For the first time, the fleeing students are now also shouting:"Nazi methods!"
Roses for the Empress
When the Iranian ruling couple left Fuhlsbüttel Airport for Paris the next day after a quiet morning in Lübeck, the atmosphere was peaceful. The dignitaries presented the empress with bouquets of white orchids and yellow roses as a farewell. The music corps of the security police, which had lined up on the airfield, intoned "I have to, have I to go to the town hall".
The state visit is changing the republic
The slogan, which the students show in the Hamburg Audimax in November 1967, becomes the slogan of the student movement.But the idyll is deceptive. The Shah's state visit marked a turning point in the history of the Federal Republic. The shooting of Benno Ohnesorg and the reactions of leading politicians angered many students. Because in Berlin, the Governing Mayor Heinrich Albertz, a Protestant pastor, expressly approves of the brutal actions of the police. He even blames the demonstrators for the death of Benno Ohnesorg. In Hamburg, Mayor Weichmann, who fled from the Nazis in 1933, condemned "riots" and "ruthlessness" and stated indignantly:"Freedom has its limits!"
In the months that followed, protests by students, whose faith in democracy had been shaken, continued to escalate. They are directed against the return of the police state, the emergency laws, the Vietnam War and reactionary structures in state and society. In November 1967, at a celebration in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg, students unfurl a banner with the inscription "Under the gowns Muff of 1000 years". The slogan becomes the watchword of a political movement that will take hold of the whole country in the following year and will change the republic.