Students at Berlin’s Freie Universität (FU) have occupied a lecture hall, staging “teach-ins” to protest militarization, education funding cuts, and the university’s collaborations with Israeli institutions, the Tagesspiegel reported.
The demonstration, which began Thursday morning, is expected to continue into the early evening. While the university is currently permitting the action, administrators have signaled that their tolerance is contingent on the situation remaining peaceful.
University administration monitors “teach-in” workshops
The FU has confirmed the presence of protesters but disputed the nature of the event. A university spokesperson told the Tagesspiegel, “There is no occupation,” clarifying that the gathering consists of a series of educational workshops rather than a formal blockade. To maintain campus operations, affected classes have been moved online or relocated.
The administration is monitoring the hall to ensure university operations are not “significantly disrupted.” Because the university is permitting the demonstration, Berlin police are not currently on-site.
A roadmap toward a national strike
Emma Heymann, a spokesperson for “Gen Z regelt FU Berlin,” addressed the protesters in a video shared on Instagram, framing the demonstration as a buildup to a larger conflict.
“We are occupying this because we want to escalate everything for a big strike on November 20th,” Heymann said. The planned national strike is intended to unite students, school pupils, and university staff in a unified effort to pressure the government.
“We have every reason to be angry,” Heymann stated, specifically targeting Germany’s foreign policy and the FU’s academic partnerships. “The Freie University is directly participating in this genocide through its cooperation with universities in Israel,” Heymann claimed.
“We are here, among other reasons, because we are against Germany’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza and specifically against the FU’s involvement in this complicity.” — Emma Heymann, spokesperson for “Gen Z regelt FU Berlin”
Widespread unrest across Berlin campuses
The FU administration continues to “observe the situation continuously,” a move that avoids immediate confrontation while signaling that the limits of their tolerance remain a factor. The next major milestone for the movement is the scheduled nationwide strike on November 20th.
