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Pundits, politicians and police chiefs have all been sticking their oar into the debate over how to deal with the unholy alliance of drunken thugs and far-right politics which came to a head in Cologne on Sunday.
If you listen to Rainer Wendt, president of the German Police Union (DPolG), then the confrontations between hooligans and police in Cologne, in which 44 officers were injured, was a success story.
"There was very good intelligence about these people and the police were in place to deal with any problems," he told The Local.