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Berlin (dpa / bb) - Entire neighborhoods are also affected: The Berlin Senate has banned New Year's Eve fireworks and fireworks in many places in the city.

The list published on Wednesday includes 54 additional areas, including large parts of Sonnenallee and Karl-Marx-Straße, but also the Märkisches Viertel, the old town of Spandau, the Simon-Dach-Kiez and the Wrangelkiez.

The Mauerpark, Görlitzer Park and Treptower Park are also affected by the ban.

There are also large squares and sights such as Potsdamer Platz, Breitscheidplatz and the Brandenburg Gate.

Staying in these places is also prohibited.

Burning off fireworks and other pyrotechnics is also prohibited in the prohibited zones on Alexanderplatz and around Pallasstrasse, which were identified last year.

The ban in the two areas last year was based on possible dangers from fireworks and numerous attacks on police and firefighters in previous years.

"Approved professional fireworks" are excluded from the ban.

For Interior Senator Andreas Geisel (SPD), infection protection takes precedence on New Year's Eve: “Boaring in groups on the street harbors considerable risks to our health.

The employees in the hospitals are already working to the limit, ”said Geisel according to the announcement.

His appeal to Berliners is correspondingly: "Stay at home, welcome the New Year in a small circle and forego fireworks and gunfire."

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The police will punish violations consistently, said Geisel.

Even if not every illegal gun throw can be prevented.

The checks by the police should make it easier for the fact that the sale of fireworks is prohibited in Berlin and that only a fraction of the people will be out with fireworks at all.

The Senate had laid down the sales ban in its new ordinance of December 14th.

On Tuesday, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) prohibited the sale of New Year's Eve fireworks across Germany.

The Berlin CDU parliamentary group accused Geisel of unbelievability in dealing with the firecrackers ban zones on New Year's Eve.

"With his U-turn in firecracking zones, SPD Interior Senator Geisel is frivolously losing his credibility," criticized CDU parliamentary group leader Burkard Dregger.

He accused Geisel of having rejected the CDU's demand for the establishment of at least a third zone in the interior committee at the beginning of December, with reference to a shortage of police personnel.

"If he didn't even have enough strength to do that, how can he suddenly stop fireworks in more than 50 places?" Asked Dregger.

Without control, the ban is purely symbolic politics.

"We are sticking to our proposal to set up additional prohibited zones where there have been attacks on emergency services over and over again in recent years."

A spokesman for Geisels countered that with the resolution of the new infection protection ordinance, the legal basis had changed and that the infection situation was also different.

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The Berlin Police Union (GdP) has a similar view of the CDU.

"Bans only make sense if they are enforceable," said spokesman Benjamin Jendro on request.

If a ban cannot be enforced, trust in the police and respect for police measures will wane.

Jendro also fears that the bans will not only meet with approval and that there could be attacks on emergency services.

Not only in Berlin there are no firecrackers zones.

In Potsdam, the burning of fireworks was prohibited in the entire city area on Wednesday.

The general decree published on Wednesday applies to the entire New Year's Eve and the entire New Year's Day, the city administration announced.

List Senate