A popular folk festival in the Berlin borough of Friedrichshagen, the Bölschefest, has been cancelled because the organiser said he felt he could not guarantee visitors’ safety “against attacks by persons with vehicles”.
Planned for the weekend of May 10 and 11, the street festival featuring a flea market, food stalls, an entertainment programme and regional association booths, has suffered the same fate as several carnival parades in Germany following a string of car-attacks, a number involving suspected Islamists.
“We cannot adequately secure this road against attacks by people with vehicles,” Hans-Dieter Laubinger, managing director of Laubinger Event company, said in a statement on March 6.
“After consultation with the police, we would have to protect the road areas for vehicles on the Bölsche with concrete,” Laubinger said, although the entrances and exits for trams would have to have remained open.
In addition, all side streets leading to Bölschestraße, which would have played host to many festival-goers, were also not secured against vehicles breaking through, the organiser said.
“Our technical and economic possibilities are not sufficient to sufficiently block the open entrances to Bölschestraße,” Laubinger said.
Instead, the intention now was to hold a smaller festival in the Friedrichshagen market square on the second weekend in May, he told the Berliner Morgenpost on March 6 indicating it was easier to secure.
Streets such as Bölschestraße “are almost no longer suitable for such festivals in these times”, he said.
During the Covid pandemic the festival was cancelled in 2020 and in 2021. In 2023 construction works prevented that edition of the folk festival.
Despite the cancellation of the Bölschefest this year, a later event in the same street, the Bölschestraßenfest, was set to continue. The organiser of that event, the Capital Culture Association, said it would take all necessary precautions in consultation with the Berlin police.
In recent months, Germany has been hit with a number of attacks killing several people.
There were also several stabbings, with the most recent one taking place in Schönebeck in Saxony-Anhalt, on the morning of March 7.
Special forces of the State Criminal Police Office reportedly shot a 26-year-old Afghan after he had threatened a German of the same age and the police with a knife. The culprit later died in a hospital.
Munich authorities have cancelled upcoming traditional carnival celebrations following a suspected terror attack on a demonstration in the city that left two dead and 39 injured. https://t.co/Bh1lFWTw8C
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) February 19, 2025
