Media Markt-Neueröffnung im Alexa am Alexanderplatz Berlin | tobiwei.de | Blog

Because you might probably not be able understand I’m going to explain briefly what happened there:

A new shopping mall should be opened tonight at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz including a electronics discounter (“Media Markt”) that is pretty famous for it’s ridiculous price policies. Because of the opening they made special offers for external harddrives (49,- €), USB-Sticks (15,- €) and XBOX 360s including games (250,-) and probably some other products. The store should be opened at midnight but the large crowd of willing consumers managed to get past blockades at the entrance and through the glass doors -by destroying them or opening them by force- so that the store was pre-opened at 11.40 pm.

Obviously chaos broke out when people started flooding the store grabbing anything they could lay their hands on and thereby leaving a corridor of destruction. Obviously some were organizing to buy as much as possible to later re-sell the stuff -which is of course forbidden but impossible to control in chaos-. At this point many people were already injured because of the people pushing each other, the broken glass and so on. They could hardly make their way out. Ambulances were called and 100 policemen arrived to secure the shopping center -imagine that!- to prevent further damage. Because this didn’t work out very well the opening had to be stopped and people were send away at about 1 am as explained in this video.

Events like this had happened in Poland and other countries where ‘Media Markt’ opened their first stores. Obviously people are more than willing to turn off their brains if only the price is low enough. In addition to the chaos inside some people opposing the consuming attitude demonstrated in front of the shopping mall adding to the overall atmosphere.

I am deeply disappointed that something like this has to happen in a country as rich as this one. Although I can understand the impulse of going there for a cheap whatever I don’t see why people can get so agressive about it, it seems very much unnecessary for something as profane as technical equipment. I think that goes without saying.
I hope the decision makers of “Media Markt” are happy with the probably planned publicity and the sales today, I guess they just missed to have enough camera people in there to have a nice company video shot of the “battle at Alexanderplatz” with realistic special effects. Really, many directors have to pay millions to be able to shoot such scenes for their movies, they could have sold the footage and changed the background digitally to anything from a war zone in Iraq to a spanish village right before El Torro arrives. With a good montage technique one might be able to add a thunderstorm, hurricane or something similar destructive to change the context and the outcome would be the same.

I guess my fellow germans have showed once again that the main purpose of life is to consume as much as you can regardless of anything else. Those who fail to do so and get hurt in the great consumer raids shall be crushed by evolution in favor of the ones who could bring their packs home safely while not losing to much blood. I for myself will continue to consume in an reasonable, non-violent manner buying stuff whenever I need it, can pay for it and can order it via internet. From experience I know that at least the second prerequisite is not very easy to meet.