Berlin celebrates Pride parade with techno beats and rainbow flags

BERLIN (AP) — Tens of thousands of people danced to techno beats across Berlin on Saturday to celebrate the German capital’s Pride parade, one of the largest LGBTQ+ celebrations in Europe.

With rainbow flags and bottles of beer, the city partied under overcast skies, an upgrade after days of downpours, to observe and honor Christopher Street Day.

“We need to represent pride is unity, pride is friendship, pride is love and we need to make sure that everybody knows that we were here in peace and in love to make it a better day for everybody,” said Jessica Benitaz, from Miami.

The annual parade commemorates the 1969 Stonewall rebellion in New York when a spontaneous street uprising was triggered by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn gay bar, on Christopher Street, in Greenwich Village.

Berlin’s parade took revelers past the iconic Brandenburg Gate and through the Nollendorfplatz neighborhood, home to the city’s gay culture as well as a memorial to the queer people who were persecuted and killed by the Nazi regime.

The city’s first Christopher Street Day was held on June 30, 1979, in West Berlin.

Thomas Hoffmann, a member of the CSD Executive Board, thought the 2025 crowd was bigger than in past years.

“We want to stand up for our rights together here,” Hoffmann said.

German news agency dpa reported that a right-wing counter-demonstration featured 30 to 50 protesters.

Six people, including the protest’s organizer, were arrested on their way to the demonstration for alleged weapons and explosives violations as well as for displaying anti-constitutional symbols, dpa reported.