Following several violent clashes between youths and city police in Switzerland's largest city during the summer of 1968, the city council, in consultation with the state council, decided to purchase four modern water cannon vehicles, two each for the city and cantonal police.

However, by doing so, the city council overstepped its authority and bypassed the municipal council. In the already politically heated atmosphere, the purchase immediately developed into a scandal and became a subject of controversy in the media.

In spring 1969, journalists Robert Naef and Peter Fasler from the popular magazine Sie und Er wanted to take advantage of the readers’ great interest in this story. Together with photographer Eric Bachmann, the two reporters ventured to the cantonal police station in Wädenswil and placed themselves directly in the water cannon’s line of fire, thus producing the impressive photographs in this book, which are now being made public in their entirety for the first time.

The one-man water cannon test contains unique contemporary documents that open a previously unseen perspective on the heated political atmosphere of the late 1960s in Zurich.