Silvio Meier (1965–1992) was an

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

activist and squatter who was killed by neo-Nazis in Berlin on 21 November 1992. After moving to East Berlin in 1986, Meier became involved in oppositional politics with the Church from Below (). His death has been commemorated with an annual memorial march and the renaming of a street in the Berlin district of

Friedrichshain Friedrichshain () is a quarter (''Ortsteil'') of the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany. From its creation in 1920 until 2001, it was a freestanding city borough. Formerly part of East Berlin, it is adjacent to Mitte, Prenzl ...

Career

Silvio Meier was born in 1965 and grew up in the

town of

Quedlinburg Quedlinburg () is a town situated just north of the Harz mountains, in the district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. As an influential and prosperous trading centre during the early Middle Ages, Quedlinburg became a center of in ...

. He trained as a toolmaker, before moving to East Berlin in 1986 where he quickly became involved in the

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

movement and oppositional politics. With others, he ran a radical library at the church at

Zionskirchplatz Zionskirchplatz is a pentagonal square in the Rosenthaler Vorstadt, a district of Berlin's Mitte district. It is located on the approximately 53 meter high Veteranenberg, an elevation on the southwestern edge of the Barnim plateau and is regist ...

and published a

samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...

newsletter called Infoblatt mOAningstar (the capital letters "OA" referencing ). He helped to found the (Church from Below) organisation, which campaigned for a space to organise alternative events. One such event was a clandestine concert in the Zionskirchplatz church on 17 October 1987 which attracted one thousand people, with the band Die Firma supporting the headliners

Element of Crime Element of Crime is a German rock band that plays melancholic chanson, pop and rock music with guitar, bass guitar, drums and voice/trumpet. Band history The band was founded in 1985 by Sven Regener who subsequently became known as the aut ...

, who were from

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

. Meier had good connections to the West Berlin anarchist scene because his older brother was living in exile there. After the bands had played, the gig was attacked by neo-Nazis and the police watched but did not intervene, causing a controversy in both East and West German media. Along with other activists, Meier and his partner were picked up and interrogated by the Stasi in 1988, after a demonstration near the

Pergamon Museum The Pergamon Museum (; ) is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1910 to 1930 by order of German Emperor Wilhelm II according to plans by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann in Stripped Clas ...

. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Meier was involved in squatting Schreinerstrasse 47 in

, one of the first buildings to be occupied in East Berlin. This was the beginning of a housing movement which squatted over 100 buildings by mid-1990 and then declined after the

Battle of Mainzer Straße The battle of Mainzer Straße took place in Friedrichshain, East Berlin between 12 and 14 November 1990. It was a major incident in the history of the city, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The magistrate of East Berlin decided to ...

in November.

Death and legacy

Gedenktafel Frankfurter Allee 49 (Friedh) Silvio Meier

In 1992, Meier was living at Schreinerstrasse 47 and working as a printer. He had a one-year-old son and called his house "Villa Felix" after him. On 21 November 1992, Meier intended to go to the Eimer club in Mitte with some friends. At the Samariterstraße U-Bahn station on the corner of Samariterstraße and

Frankfurter Allee The Frankfurter Allee is one of the oldest roads of Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It extends the Karl-Marx-Allee from Frankfurter Tor in the direction of the city of Frankfurt (Oder). It is part of Bundesstraße 1 and has a length of . L ...

, the group encountered a gang of neo-Nazis from

Lichtenberg Lichtenberg () is the eleventh borough of Berlin, Germany. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it absorbed the former borough of Hohenschönhausen. Overview The district contains the Tierpark Berlin in Friedrichsfelde, the larger of Berlin ...

. A confrontation ensued, in which Meier was stabbed in the chest and another man was knocked unconscious. Meier died from his wounds, at the age of 27. The following day, a group of 100 people met at Schrienerstrasse 47. They marched to a youth club named after

Judith Auer Judith Auer (née Vallentin) (19 September 1905 – 27 October 1944) was a resistance fighter against the Nazi régime in Germany. Early life Auer was born in Zürich. Her father was the communist writer, Erich Vallentin. In 1993, a 17-year-old man was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment for the manslaughter of Meier and two others also received suspended sentences. All three were associated with the youth club. A plaque was erected at the

U-Bahn Rapid transit in Germany consists of four U-Bahn systems and fourteen S-Bahn systems. The U-Bahn commonly understood to stand for Untergrundbahn (''underground railway'') are conventional rapid transit systems that run mostly underground, while ...

station where Meier was murdered and a commemorative march happens every year on 21 November. Numbers grew from 200 participants in 1994 to 5,000 marchers in both 2012 and 2013. It was cancelled in 2018 and occurred again in 2019. In April 2013, a street in Friedrichshain was renamed Silvio-Meier-Straße. The naming concerned friends of Meier, who believed he would not have wanted to have been made into a hero. The previous year a self-managed social centre in Bologna had named a square after Meier. In 2016, the Silvio Meier Prize was created by the

Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg () is the second borough of Berlin, formed in 2001 by merging the former East Berlin borough of Friedrichshain and the former West Berlin borough of Kreuzberg. The historic Oberbaum Bridge, formerly a Berlin border c ...

borough as a means to recognise actions taken against right-wing extremism. It was awarded to two anti-fascist activists. The following year it was received by the campaign Stand Up Against Racism.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meier, Silvio 1965 births 1992 deaths Deaths by stabbing in Germany People from Quedlinburg Squatters Streets in Berlin German printers East German dissidents Manslaughter in Germany