as the National Youth Ring or the Ring of Political Youth. In Bremen-Nord there were a number of students who were members of the German Democrats and also dissatisfied with the work of the ABS. Therefore, they met from June 1967 and founded in mid-November in the pub "market tavern" in the Violenstraße the "Independent Student Association" (USB), in which each student could enter. Among the founders of USB were Hermann Rademann, Jörg Streese and Christoph Köhler the outstanding personalities. The activities were also directed against cases of censorship of the school newspapers, which - as the students demanded - should be run by themselves as responsible newspapers. Against the editor of the newspaper The echo of the Gerhard Rohlfs high school in Bremen Vegesack, Hans Jürgen Weissbach, was determined because of offense against the press law. In many cases, left-liberal teachers supported the activities of the USB. At the end of 1967, discussions took place at numerous Bremen schools on the Vietnam War, against the educational crisis, for school reforms, for anti-authoritarian education and against emergency laws. On 27 November, Rudi Dutschke, the most well-known representative of the German student movement and the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition, visited the city and gave a speech to 250 people in the scene club Lila Eule and another in the auditorium of a Bremen grammar school the following day. On 23 December 1967, in Bremen, a large demonstration against the Vietnam War with several thousand participants took place, the signs with texts such as "In Vietnam, the children burn, with us the Christmas trees" held up. The demonstration moved through downtown to the US Consulate General. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the USB distributed leaflets in front of two churches, telling churchgoers to visit the "rich devotions" while "the war raged in Vietnam." Triggers of the tram riots was a fare increase of Bremen tram AG (BSAG). At the beginning of 1968 it raised the tariffs for single tickets from 60 to 70 pfennig and that for trading cards for pupils, students and apprentices from 33.3 to 40 pfennigs. The student representatives then decided to defend themselves at a small gathering in the Purple Owl. Morally and logistically, they were supported by the leftist SPD Altstadtverein (OVA) and the then FDP-affiliated Young Democrats. On Monday 15 January 1968, around 5 pm, a group of 25 to 50 students, young trade unionists and apprentices