Monday demonstrations against social cuts from 2004

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Anti-Hartz demonstration

Since 2003 , demonstrations organized by the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) have taken place in the Federal Republic of Germany without much public attention. Later (2004) these demonstrations against labor market reforms ( Hartz concept ) were attended by thousands, most of whom did not recognize the relationship to the MLPD. Demonstrators and the media described it as a Hartz IV demonstration or a "Monday demonstration" .

prehistory

The government declaration of the Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on March 14, 2003, in which he announced the program under the name Agenda 2010 : “We.” Is seen as the starting point for the profound restructuring of the welfare state (“ social cuts ”) against which the protests were directed in 2004 will cut the services of the state, promote personal responsibility and have to demand more personal effort from each individual. ”After various smaller protests, around 100,000 participants in a union-supported, central demonstration on November 1, 2003 in Berlin turned against this policy.

Discussion of terms

However, the use of the term “Monday demonstration” was controversial. Some GDR civil rights activists criticized the creation of an analogy to the peaceful revolution of 1989 . The Monday demonstrations in 1989 served to overcome a totalitarian dictatorship. Vera Lengsfeld said, for example: “It was about freedom!” Wolf Biermann used the term “fraudulent labeling”. The then Minister of Economics, Clement, particularly sharply rejected the term as politically responsible. In the Berliner Zeitung , Joachim Gauck called the term “foolish and forgotten about history”. However, he stated that it was positive "when people demonstrate": if you think "you have good reasons for demonstrations, you don't need a false label."

On the other hand, the Leipzig pastor Christian Führer defended the use of the term: “It cannot go according to the motto: We welcome the fact that you took to the streets against the communists, but now you have to shut up. It really doesn't work that way. ”But just then he spoke out in favor of Hartz IV as the“ finally initiated beginning of necessary reforms of our welfare state ”than the day before, on August 29, 2004, the declaration by members of former GDR opposition groups against Hartz IV had appeared with 60 signatories: “We protest against Hartz IV. We agree to the revival of the Monday demonstrations. It was and is about justice, self-determination, maturity, human dignity and freedom… ”.

Course of the demonstrations

The initiator is Andreas Ehrholdt , an unemployed office clerk from Magdeburg who organized the first Monday demonstrations there. From April 19, 2004, there were weekly Monday demonstrations in Leipzig. At its peak on August 30, 2004, at least 200,000 people demonstrated in over 200 cities against the Hartz IV reform package and the associated replacement of unemployment benefits with unemployment benefit II .

At the Berlin demonstration on September 20, 2004, the wife of the applicant, Fred Schirrmacher, was injured.

From mid-October 2004 the number of participants dropped significantly and numerous groups withdrew from the demonstrations.

In a speech in Deggendorf, Edmund Stoiber described the Monday demonstrators in Jena and Eisenach as "stupid calves who chose their butchers themselves" because they had shown posters by Oskar Lafontaine, who had been against the inclusion of East Germans in the pension insurance and social security systems . Lafontaine classified the Monday demonstrations as evidence that “the people wanted to re-appropriate politics”.

Federal President Köhler welcomes Bremen Monday demonstrators

Federal President Horst Köhler , who visited Bremen on September 10, 2007 with an entourage of 180 diplomats, said on the open microphone: “If we meet here, I think you have the right to demonstrate. The ambassadors from all over the world see that Germany, in this case Bremen and Bremerhaven, is also struggling with problems. That is important, because from the point of view of many ambassadors from Africa we are doing really well in Germany. I would like to show them then: There is fighting here too, not everything is rosy. That is why we have to keep working, and that is why it is good that we take note of what you say and what complains you! "

Probst Joachim Hempel, who "naturally" made the Brunswick Cathedral available for an opening prayer, based on the example of the Leipzig Monday demonstrations, because the topic was also important for future generations, called for "more justice": "People who, with 1,500 euros gross having to feed a family cannot do anything for a private pension plan ”. For the fall, Bromberger called for a nationwide rally to Berlin.

Participation of neo-Nazis

In Erfurt , the police stipulated that demonstrators had to share a public space with the right-wing extremists . In keeping with the Erfurt tradition of 1989, the demonstration always took place on Thursdays. From November 2004, instead of the demonstration, a rally was held on the Erfurt Anger. An incident occurred in which the Verdi functionary Angelo Lucifero shot a blank gun into the air after neo-Nazi cadres who were well known in the city harassed him.

In other cities, neo-Nazis lined up in the Monday demonstrations, which the demonstrators did not always prevent. One of the reasons for this was firstly that the organizers did not provide enough stewards to enforce the exclusion of the neo-Nazis; In individual cases, stewards from the right-wing extremist spectrum were recruited in smaller towns. Second, some of the organizers were so politically inexperienced that they did not understand the need for neo-Nazis to be marginalized: all victims of social cuts had a right to protest, they argued. Third, the police had only possessed a handle, push away right-wing extremists from the demonstration, if it had already come to criminal acts, such as the seditious incitement to hatred against parts of the population.

The participation of right-wing extremists was cited by the union leaders as a reason not to call for nationwide participation in demonstrations against social cuts. Although the organizers have mostly called for the exclusion of neo-Nazis from the start, the principles of the Monday demonstrations could only be fixed in writing and decided in some cases after months due to the disputes over the open microphone and the grassroots democratic votes. One of these principles - besides that of non-partisanship - reads: “We distinguish ourselves decisively from fascists. You have no place in the Monday demonstration. "

Organization by the MLPD

While the branches of the unions began to join the Monday demonstrations, the DGB leadership hesitated before the elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Thuringia and Saxony. The movement in East Germany has not yet found a counterpart in West Germany. This is where the Attac groups are called upon. Attempts by “small political groups” like the MLPD to bring the Monday demonstration under their control are detrimental to the movement . The supraregional coordination meeting in Leipzig on August 28, 2004 threatens to be "infiltrated" by the MLPD. Since many people who had not witnessed the old conflicts of the West German left did not understand the "problem with the MLPD", an explanatory paper should be prepared and sent to the groups. A nationwide structure for coordinating the demos is not considered necessary and is currently to be avoided, as is a mud fight over the press. A large demonstration on October 3, 2004, which the MLPD had brought up under the “completely unacceptable” motto “March on Berlin”, met with great approval in East Germany. However, they run the "risk" of acting as the end point of the Monday demonstrations and being compared in the media with the protest day on April 3, 2004.

In Bremen , the “Alliance against Social Kahlschlag” ceded the organization of the Monday demonstration to a group of independent, non-party citizens and representatives of the MLPD. This group had already carried out the preparation for additional meetings beforehand. Maintaining weekly Monday demonstrations was no longer considered sensible according to the separation decision of parts of the alliance: a campaign must be brought to an orderly end before it diverges miserably. Any further collaboration with the MLPD was rejected because it showed a lack of solidarity with allies and only supported the direction under its influence in the nationwide movement against social cutbacks. She does not see the Monday demonstration as a form of protest, but as a separate movement under her leadership. To this end, she strives for nationwide networking according to her organizational scheme. Your Bremen representatives were heavily involved in the organization and tried to “push through” their party's guidelines. It is not enough, however, to stand up for the adoption of principles of a movement in which one demarcates oneself “decisively against fascism”, because right-wing populists could also subscribe to this. Demands and slogans such as “Away with Hartz IV, we are the people!” Are also not suitable for setting themselves apart from them.

Nationwide coordination

On August 28, 2004, a first meeting for the nationwide coordination of the anti-Hartz movement took place in Leipzig at the invitation of the local Monday demonstration, in which 186 people from 66 cities took part. Most of them had been elected as delegates at the respective Monday demonstrations. The assembly decided with a large majority to build a nationwide network of the Monday demonstrations and a nationwide march to Berlin on October 3, 2004 .

On October 2, 2004, over 50,000 people demonstrated in Berlin , and on the following day around 25,000 people demonstrated on Alexanderplatz.

On February 24, 2007, 142 delegates and 51 guests from 68 cities took part in the fifth federal conference of the Monday demonstrations in Kassel and decided to carry out another protest in autumn. On October 13, 2007, around 7,000 people took part in the fourth nationwide demonstration of the Monday demonstration movement in Berlin . Among other things, they demanded a withdrawal of the Hartz IV reforms and the retirement of 67. Demonstrators called for minimum wages on posters and banners and the introduction of the 30-hour week with full wages. They waved the flags of left-wing parties and groups as well as unions such as IG Metall and Verdi . The police praised the peaceful course of the event organized by the nationwide coordination group of the movement. The call for a demonstration said: “We want work that we can live on. We do not allow ourselves to be divided into workers and unemployed. We want a future worth living in. ”The spokesman for the coordination group of the nationwide Monday demonstration movement was the former GDR civil rights activist and MLPD supporter, Fred Schirrmacher , who registered the Berlin Monday demonstration.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.bundesweit-montagsdemo.com/
  2. ↑ Armin Pfahl-Traughber : Left-wing extremism in Germany: A critical inventory. Wiesbaden 2014; Springer, ISBN 978-3-658-04506-7 , p. 108
  3. ↑ Gerhard Schröder: Submission of a government declaration by the Federal Chancellor: Courage for peace and change. In: German Bundestag (Ed.): Plenary Protocol 15/32. Shorthand report. (PDF; 663 kB) pp. 2479–2493 (quotation p. 2479).
  4. ^ Martin Upchurch, Graham John Taylor, Andy Mathers: The Crisis of Social Democratic Trade Unionism in Western Europe: The Search for Alternatives. Ashgate, Farnham 2009, ISBN 978-0-7546-7053-7 (Contemporary Employment Relations), p. 75 .
  5. ↑ "Stern" from August 9, 2004
  6. ↑ "Stern" from August 9, 2004
  7. ↑ If you have good reasons for demos, you don't need a wrong label . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 9, 2004
  8. ↑ Controversial term. Pastor of the Nikolaikirche defends Monday demonstration. ( Memento from August 11, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche.de , August 9, 2004 (copy of the original version in the Internet Archive , as of August 11, 2004).
  9. ↑ “We don't need Lafontaine for our protests”. Monday demonstrations against Hartz IV: Interview with Pastor Christian Führer from Leipzig's Nikolaikirche. In: Braunschweiger Zeitung , August 29, 2004.
  10. ↑ Special edition No. 1 (PDF; 123 kB) Telegraph , September 13, 2004, p. 2.
  11. ↑ "Financial Times Deutschland" of August 8, 2004 ( Memento of August 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  12. ↑ Leipzig call for Monday demonstrations from April 19, 2004
  13. ↑ "Sächsische Zeitung" of August 17, 2004
  14. ↑ stern.de
  15. ^ "Daily newspaper" of February 26, 2007
  16. ↑ The stupidest calves . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 2005 ( online - excerpts from a speech by Edmund Stoiber on August 5).
  17. ↑ Well tanned on socialism . Spiegel Online , August 27, 2005
  18. ↑ 149. Bremen Monday demonstration on September 10, 2007
  19. ↑ “Kreiszeitung Syke” from September 11, 2007
  20. ↑ “Göttinger Tageblatt” of April 21, 2008  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.goettinger-tageblatt.de  
  21. ^ "NGO Online" on April 30, 2008
  22. ↑ Angelo Lucifero in Thuringia, "Friday" of January 18, 2008
  23. ↑ 26th Bremen Monday demonstration on February 14, 2005
  24. ^ Principles of the Bremen Monday demonstration
  25. ^ Principles of the Reutlingen Monday campaign
  26. ↑ Principles of the Monday demonstration in Sindelfingen ( Memento of the original of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.montagsdemo-sifi.de
  27. ^ Principles for the Monday demonstration in Sondershausen
  28. ^ Final declaration of February 24, 2007
  29. ^ "Spiegel Online" on October 13, 2007
  30. ^ "Berlin Online" on October 13, 2007
  31. ^ "Daily newspaper" of February 26, 2007
  32. ^ "Süddeutsche Zeitung" of March 1, 2007
  33. ↑ taz.de