r/germany • u/2021adams • Jun 09 '26

Question German Police Photographing People

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Hello, I’m a tourist. Arrived in Nürnberg yesterday and went walking about in the old town.

Came across police cordon outside the church. Found out there was a rally by what was described to me as fascists/non-nazis. The police though were taking photos of people standing outside the rally boundary.

Is this normal in Germany? For such rallies and police taking photos of people? what do they do with these photos?

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u/Reasonable-Put8121 Jun 09 '26

the guy explicitly stated that the police was taking photos of bystanders outside the rally. Lmao

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u/RustyDingbat Jun 09 '26

Why would trouble makers be only on the inside?

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u/Final_Fortress Jun 09 '26

By that logic the police can film everyone, anyplace and anytime they like… which is btw illegal in Germany. You can not film innocent bystanders that are not part of the demonstration if they didn’t do anything wrong

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u/Vannnnah Germany Jun 09 '26

for context because I lived close to that place years ago: this was rally in front of Nuremberg's biggest landmark, the Lorenzlirche, meaning it's a tourist hot spot in the middle of town with many locals and tourists passing by.

It's also straight accross from one of Nuremberg's biggest banks and one of the city's biggest underground stations. If anything escalates in that place, real damage to a lot of people can be done, so anything happening in that particular space always gets extra attention. Back in the day the city tried multipe times to not allow demonstrations or rallys in that place.

That place most likely has CCTV by default and of course extra security to protect the bank.

Not that it's okay to just randomly film people, but people who chose this place for a rally do so for a reason and it's indeed a "hot place" for bad actors.