In October 1989, a young female student named Cornelia "Conny" Wesmann had been killed in the course of a police pursuit after members of the city`s militant anarchist scene had clashed with rightwing extremist skinheads in Goettingen`s historic center. Two weeks later, 20 000 demonstrators converged in Goettingen, among them 2500 ultra-militant members of the Anarchist "Black Block" from countercultural haunts such as West Berlin, Freiburg and Hamburg-Hafenstraße.