Protests against protective measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany
Protests against protective measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany are public rallies that are directed against the general directives , ordinances and laws issued on the basis of the Infection Protection Act (IfSG) to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and with those in accordance with § 28 , § 32 , § 73 Abs. 1a No. 6 IfSG in particular the basic rights of the freedom of the person , the freedom of assembly and freedom of movementmay be restricted subject to sanctions. These took place in many German cities from April 2020. Some demonstrations exceeded the registered number or were unannounced; some of them were broken up by the police . During these rallies, false information about the COVID-19 pandemic was spread and journalists were attacked.
While at the beginning many different groups called for rallies, since summer 2020 many demonstrations have been registered by the “lateral thinking” movement. The original group from the Stuttgart area also registered various demonstrations in Berlin . Since December 2020, parts of the lateral thinker groups have been classified as extremist and observed by the constitution protection authorities.
As a reaction to the protests against protective measures, counter rallies took place, which were directed “against conspiracy ideologues , right-wing esotericists and right-wing extremists ”.
Protests in Germany
German cities
Berlin
In March 2020, the dramaturge Anselm Lenz , the author Hendrik Sodenkamp and the activist Batsheba N'Diaye, who according to the taz does not exist, founded the Communication Center for Democratic Resistance (KDW) in Berlin . The founders previously belonged to " Haus Bartleby ", an artist project founded in 2014 for criticism of capitalism . Since March 28, 2020, KDW has been organizing weekly “hygiene demos” against encroachments on fundamental rights in the fight against pandemics under the motto “Not without us!” . They take place every Saturday in front of the Volksbühne Berlin on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin-Mitte. The KDW newspaper distributed there named the address of the Volksbühne as the editorial and association headquarters. The Volksbühne denied any connection to KDW and examined legal steps against the use of the address. She also distanced herself from the demonstrations in front of her home. The "Bartleby House" also distanced itself from its former members.
The KDW founders deny the danger posed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus , interpret the corona measures as an “ emergency regime ” that “resistance people” should end, and refer to the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany . Lenz's call for the first hygiene demo explained the measures taken from “ panic attacks by over-aged elites ”, as a cover for a “capitalism crash” or as an “action to protect the climate”. The formerly free press was "brought into line" , the public discussion "abolished". Therefore should be demonstrated with respiratory masks and a minimum distance for the basic rights. The KDW website described the Bundestag's lockdown resolution as an “ enabling law ” for a “de facto dictatorship ” whose system was “at the end”. In the KDW newspaper, which has been distributed free of charge since April, Lenz claimed that the virus was “practically non-fatal, even for infected people”, and called for a new “economic constitution”, despite around 200,000 deaths worldwide. In the club's own YouTube channel “Hauptstadtstudio”, he demanded that politicians, business elites and representatives of the “synchronized press” responsible for the current situation be brought to justice.
The right-wing extremist “Netzwerk Demokratie e. V. “, the former radio presenter Ken Jebsen on his channel KenFM and the founder of the Rubikon website , Jens Wernicke. Then Rubikon , the right-wing populist Epoch Times , Oliver Janich on Telegram and Martin Lejeune on the history revisionist blog "Die Rote Fahne" reported about it.
All hygiene demonstrations were previously unannounced or limited to a maximum of 20 participants. The number of participants grew from 40 (March 28) to 350 (April 11) and 500 (April 18) to more than 1000 (April 25) and fell to around 300 on May 1 and 2. At every rally so far, the police took personal details, issued references and initiated criminal investigations, for example for violations of the Infection Protection Act or resistance to law enforcement officers and an assault. Many demonstrators shouted the slogan “ We are the people ”. They barely obeyed the calls to keep your distance and wear a face mask.
Anselm Lenz was arrested on May 1, 2020 after throwing newspapers at police officers. The assembly authority had previously warned him that because of his calls, he would have to allow the maximum number of 20 participants to be exceeded. Because he did not withdraw the appeals and a ban on staying on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz was broken, the police arrested him. He called on the officials to refuse to give orders, called his arrest a crime and a "breach of the constitution" for which those responsible would be brought to justice. In his newspaper he wrote of a “de facto dictatorial hygiene regime” that terrified the population and locked them up at home, brought the big media outlets into line and instrumentalized state institutions against the people: “A dystopian digital and pharmaceutical company cartel urges to power. ”One should not leave the protest to the extreme right-wing participants. Due to the lack of opposition in the parliaments, extra-parliamentary struggles for freedom rights.
According to Ruth Herzberg ( Der Freitag ), men and women of all ages, “ punks ”, “ hippies and philistines , black blocks and tattooed Lichtenberg hools ” as well as “confused, fearful people who need an outlet” were among the participants. It is "not everything right or left". However, the protests were increasingly supported by AfD , NPD , Identitarians and QAnon supporters or, according to Robert Kiesel (Tagesspiegel), “hijacked by right-wing populists and right-wing extremists”.
The applicants distanced themselves from anti-Semites and nationalist Holocaust deniers in a leaflet . The Holocaust denier Gerd Walther, as a participant in the Berlin hygiene demos, nevertheless made “the Jews ” and their alleged “takeover” of parliaments responsible for fighting the global pandemic and welcomed the armed marches in front of state parliaments in the USA. Since May 2020, according to observations by the scene expert Olaf Sundermeyer, more and more Holocaust deniers, NPD activists and supporters of the right-wing extremist "wing" of the AfD have been taking part in the hygiene demonstrations, including Wilko Möller , member of the state parliament and numerous other AfD representatives from Brandenburg and Berlin.
According to Erik Peter, the core of the demonstrators of the hygiene demos include the documentary filmmaker Uli Gellermann, who works for Sputnik News , the video maker Thomas Grabinger , who works on the Journalistenwatch blog , Ken Jebsen, the "people's teacher" Nikolai Nerling , who is a networker for the neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier scene, and the influencer and AfD member Carolin Matthie. Except for Nerling, the organizers did not distinguish themselves from any of the named people. Supporters are the singer Xavier Naidoo , the cook Attila Hildmann , the right-wing extremist Jürgen Elsässer and his magazine Compact . The Berlin interior administration sees the calls for the hygiene demonstration as “ideological points of contact for right-wing extremists, especially right-wing extremist Reich citizens ”. The events had a “very heterogeneous attendance”, including “a few right-wing extremists, NPD members, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaccination experts and esotericists ”.
On the sidelines of the Berlin hygiene demo on May 1, 2020, 15 people attacked a camera team from the ZDF- heute-show and injured five team members, four of them seriously. The state security took over the investigation on May 2, 2020. A connection between the perpetrators and the demonstrations is not known.
On May 9, 2020, Attila Hildmann called for a “freedom demo for the German people” in front of the Reichstag building . Previously, he had warned for weeks in network videos of an allegedly threatened dictatorship and an "enabling law" that Health Minister Jens Spahn wanted to introduce on May 15 on behalf of US billionaire Bill Gates and which would bring about " eugenics and genocide ". He had posed with firearms. On May 8, he threatened " Satanists and child-fuckers" like Bill Gates "should fear him" and showed himself with a pump gun at a shooting range, where he fired several shots. Elsewhere he announced that he would die “only with gun in hand and head high” in the “fight for our freedom”. The state wanted to kill him because he was spreading the "truth". At the same time, he told the police that he was not carrying a gun, but was practicing at the shooting range for a gun ownership card . About 150 people responded to his call. The police arrested about 30 of them for identification purposes. In the afternoon, around 1200 people demonstrated unannounced on Alexanderplatz in Berlin against the infection control measures. The mood was aggressive, bottles were thrown at police officers who used pepper spray against some demonstrators. There were further demonstrations on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz at the Volksbühne. At the Pentecost weekend at the end of May, the corona-related protests noticeably subsided.
Demonstration on August 1, 2020
On August 1st, a demonstration took place in Berlin under the motto “The end of the pandemic - Freedom Day”. Groups for whom "Corona is not an epidemic, but above all a global conspiracy " had called out, above all the Stuttgart movement lateral thinking 711 (Stuttgart telephone code) and anti-vaccination opponents, but also right-wing extremist groups. During the demonstration, the infection protection requirements were deliberately disregarded, which led to the formal dissolution of the demonstration and later the subsequent rally, but this was not cleared. In addition, criminal charges were brought against the leader of the meeting. The police initially spoke of 20,000 participants, later they corrected this number to around 30,000. The organizers claimed that up to 1.3 million people attended. According to the media and politicians, the information provided by the organizers is far too high. According to the ARD fact finder , for example, not that many people would fit into the rally area. Among other things, pictures of the crowds of the Love Parade 2001, which took place in Berlin, were shared on social networks to substantiate this number. Olaf Sundermeyer , right-wing extremism expert at the rbb , suspected intent behind the dissemination of such figures, as it was intended to convey the image of a mass movement. Protesters threatened and insulted the press. The CDU parliamentary group vice- Arnold Vaatz , formerly GDR civil rights activist, accused the Berlin police of "GDR methods", a "brazen small calculation of the number of participants" as in the demonstrations in autumn 1989. Axel Fischer (also CDU), a member of the Bundestag for many years, defended Vaatz and called on the “gathered left parties” to “deal objectively with Vaatz's arguments, instead of grappling around in general and vague terms.” Focus Online described them as “crude conspiracy theories”. The police union (GdP) also contradicted Vaatz and described his comments as "deeply unqualified". This would give "conspiracy fanatics (...) an unnecessary boost". The German Police Union described his comparison as "malicious and mean". The Tagesspiegel rated statements by Vaatz as false. There was conflicting information about police officers injured in this demonstration. In a tweet from the Berlin police that was picked up by various media, there was talk of 18 police officers injured. The police later published a report according to which a total of 45 officers had been injured in the various demonstrations carried out in Berlin that day, without it being possible to precisely assign them to the individual demonstrations. There were counter-demonstrations on the sidelines, including by anti-fascist groups.
Demonstrations on August 29, 2020
At the end of August 2020, the Berlin police banned several demonstrations registered for August 29. The decisive factor for this decision was the demonstration at the beginning of August, because, according to Berlin's Senator for the Interior, Andreas Geisel (SPD), the people who registered for these meetings "deliberately broke the rules that they had previously accepted in discussions with the police," especially compliance the 1.5 meter distance and wearing mouth and nose protection . The demonstrators are not concerned with rejecting the corona measures , but their concerns are directed against “our free democratic basic order ” and aim “ to make our system contemptible under the guise of freedom of assembly and expression ”. There were also significant threats against his authority and the police. The organizers, the Stuttgart-based initiative lateral thinking 711, announced an objection to the Berlin Administrative Court , and if necessary also to the Federal Constitutional Court . The plan is to occupy Strasse des 17. Juni for two weeks. The ban was lifted by the Berlin Administrative Court on August 28, 2020. Among other things, the court stipulated that compliance with the minimum distance must be ensured by stewards and regular loudspeaker announcements. A mask requirement is not one of the requirements. The lifting of the ban was confirmed in the second instance by the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court . Jürgen Elsässer’s right-wing radical Compact magazine advertised the protests; the new right publisher Götz Kubitschek , the head of the right-wing extremist identity movement Martin Sellner , the AfD politicians Björn Höcke , Tino Chrupalla , Alice Weidel , Stephan Brandner , the ex-AfD man André Poggenburg and neo-Nazi organizations such as the NPD and the small party Der III . Weg called for participation in the events, as did the singer Xavier Naidoo and the TV chef Attila Hildmann . The "Berlin Alliance Against Right" announced counter rallies at Bebelplatz . The police in Berlin prematurely terminated the demonstration organized by lateral thinking 711 because the distance requirement was not observed and no everyday masks were worn. By then, the police estimated that 18,000 people had gathered in Berlin-Mitte, including families with children, right-wing extremists and conspiracy ideologues. While the demonstrations on Friedrichstrasse and on the eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate ended around noon, people gathered at the Victory Column in the afternoon for a rally. According to police, around 38,000 people took part in the rally. According to the television station n-tv , the demonstrations were “significantly larger than expected”. The initiator Michael Ballweg called for the opening of the rally: "We demand the immediate lifting of the corona measures and the abdication of the federal government". According to Taz , the demonstrators formed “a motley crowd”, namely “families, pensioners, esotericists , anti-vaccination opponents [...] but also citizens of the Reich and right-wing extremists”. The right-wing extremist “Volkslehrer” Nikolai Nerling and neo-Nazis from the parties “ Dierechte ” and “ III. Away ". Performances on stage included athlete Alexandra Wester , basketball player Joshiko Saibou , former footballer Thomas Berthold , lawyer Robert Francis Kennedy junior and Heiko Schrang, who spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on the SchrangTV YouTube channel . 200 members of "Christians in the Resistance", a network of evangelical opponents of the Corona policy, took part in the rallies; the organizer of this network, the free church pastor Christian Stockmann, sang the self-composed song “Wach auf Deutschland” on the main stage as a protest against alleged Corona servitude. Signs with posters were carried at the events showing the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder , the virologist Christian Drosten and other politicians and journalists in convict clothing with the words "guilty". More than two dozen AfD members of the Bundestag and many from the state parliaments took part in the demonstrations. According to Welt, “the far right camp of the party” was “strongly represented”, but among the participants were also some of those AfD members of the Bundestag who “are on Meuthen's side in internal party disputes and pretend to distance themselves from right-wing extremists” - despite Jörg Meuthen's advice in advance that one would support citizens of the Reich and right-wing extremists by participating.
According to police reports, around 3,000 people gathered in front of the embassy of the Russian Federation on the afternoon of August 29, 2020. They demanded a "peace treaty" for Germany, alluding to a conspiracy story by the Reich Citizens ' Movement , "that Germany is still occupied by the Allies and is not a sovereign state - and, moreover, does not even have a peace treaty". According to Interior Senator Geisel, there were "violent, violent clashes in the area of the Russian embassy", with "stones and bottles being thrown at the police". Seven police officers were injured and around 200 people were arrested. Attila Hildmann was among those arrested. He was released on the evening of August 29th. The initiator of the lateral thinking demo Ballweg did not address the tumultuous scenes in his speech and said that “right-wing extremism and left-wing extremism [...] have no place in our movement”, but then spoke of “paid aggressors” who smuggled into the protest would. According to Ballweg, the Basic Law has been hollowed out, so it is not the Bundestag but the sovereign who have to take power again - according to Taz, "that is, themselves" - and they want to "work on a new constitution".
On August 30, the media reported that three Bavarian police officers had also appeared on the stage, one active officer, one retired and one currently being transferred to a criminal offense. All three had already been noticed as Corona activists, one is said to have previously spread theses that were affinity for the Reich citizen during protests. In Berlin, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, apparently no limits to extremism were exceeded in terms of content. The Bavarian SPD member of the state parliament Florian Ritter said, however, that the statements of two of the police officers went “well beyond the moderation requirement”. The world reported that there was talk of an "alleged pandemic"; at the same time, it was called on to obtain information from so-called alternative media. A police officer said that wearing masks was “enslaved” and that he expected his colleagues to “respect the Basic Law and, if necessary, to remonstrate if politicians order things that contradict our fundamental values, our fundamental rights”. As the Bavarian Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann announced , they were private appearances, which, however, were “checked very carefully” by the service supervisory authority, pointing out the duty of loyalty for retired civil servants as well as the “necessary moderation”. A police officer from Hanover who had been suspended because of statements at another Corona demo also appeared on the “lateral thinking 711” stage and stated that his suspension was “worth it” and that he would “do it again and again”.
At the same time, targeted false reports were spread on August 29. It was rumored that police officers had sided with the demonstrators and supported violent attempts at insurrection; in case of doubt, one should call out the code word "711" to the officers. The extreme right-wing Compact magazine announced the fictitious message via its Telegram channel that the Karlsruhe Federal Constitutional Court had declared the dissolution of the “lateral thinking” demonstration illegal in an urgent procedure , so the event could be continued. In addition, a rumor was circulated online that a demonstrator had been killed or at least raped by the police. Many "lateral thinking" supporters called the police press office and accused officials of killing demonstrators.
Occupation of the stairs of the Reichstag
On the evening of August 29, 2020, 450 to 500 people, in particular supporters of the Reich Citizenship Movement and Holocaust deniers, including from Berlin, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Thuringia, including right-wing extremist Nikolai Nerling , overcame the barriers in front of the Reichstag building , occupied the stairs and ran to the entrance portal, where they were initially only stopped by three police officers. Many of the demonstrators waved imperial flags .
The naturopath Tamara K. from the Eifel had called for this action at the rally in front of the Reichstag building, which was registered by the Reich Citizens' Group "Stateless", shortly before the right-wing demonstrators advanced to the Reichstag. She had already represented Reich citizenship ideology in social networks and expressed herself from right-wing populist to right-wing extremist. From the stage she shouted that the police had taken off their helmets, that US President Donald Trump - who is considered a “liberator” by the supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory - had landed in Berlin and that the demonstrators now had to set an example by “ our house rights “get. The demonstrators should go “up there” with her and “sit peacefully on the stairs”. The police recorded that a total of 21 criminal offenses were found in connection with the incident and that Tamara K. is being investigated for "incitatory breach of the peace ".
All parties represented in the Bundestag except the AfD were then shocked by the incident. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke of the fact that "Reich flags and right-wing extremist rabble in front of the German Bundestag [...] are an unbearable attack on the heart of our democracy". Two days later he paid tribute to the police officers involved in Bellevue Palace . In addition, an extraordinary meeting of the Bundestag's Council of Elders took place on September 3 . This agreed that the Interior Committee of the Bundestag and the parliamentary control body should now also deal with the incident. On September 11th, the events were also discussed in a current hour of the Bundestag.
Demonstrations on October 25, 2020
On October 25, 2020, around 2000 people marched through Berlin-Mitte to protest against the Corona measures. The "lateral thinking" movement had called for the demonstration. Most of the participants kept neither the mask requirement nor the distance requirements. When the train was not allowed to start at Alexanderplatz for the time being because no masks were worn, some of the demonstrators moved unaccompanied by the police in the direction of Karl-Marx-Allee to the Kosmos , a former cinema, to protest against the World Health Summit that would originally have taken place there should, but was instead held online due to the increasing number of infections. The demonstration was registered with 2500 participants, but according to Tagesspiegel it was underestimated by the police, who initially only had a double-digit number of law enforcement officers according to the newspaper. Twitter posts showed protesters blocking the path of an ambulance and a fire truck without the police intervening. After the organizer had declared the demo over in order to forestall a breakup by the police, riots broke out, with a group of participants briefly surrounding some police officers. A reporter was threatened that after the "overthrow" he would "hang on a tree like all other system journalists". About 150 people took part in a counter-demonstration.
Demonstration on November 18, 2020 and disruptive action in the Bundestag
More than 10,000 people demonstrated on November 18, 2020, on the day of the vote on the third law to protect the population in an epidemic situation of national scope , in the immediate vicinity of the Reichstag . The day before, the Interior Ministry had rejected a dozen applications for approval for demonstrations planned in the pacified district . 77 police officers were injured in the demonstration itself. The police arrested 365 people during the demonstration and initiated 257 investigations . Observers spoke of an "extremely aggressive mood". After many participants had not left the rally site after the event had been dissolved, despite a police request, the police also used water cannons, which the demonstrators only sprayed, however, as the police announced that there were children in the crowd. During the protests, the AfD member of the Bundestag Karsten Hilse was temporarily arrested because he was not wearing a mask. Hilse stated that he had presented a certificate according to which he was released from the mask requirement, but this had been doubted because no specific illness was listed in it. When he was arrested, several police officers beat him down while trying to record a video. The police operations management stated that Hilse had “behaved uncooperatively, asked his companion to film and resisted”. The AfD parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland called for a "complete clarification".
On the same day, four visitors invited by AfD members of the Bundestag to the Bundestag harassed Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU), the FDP politician Konstantin Kuhle , the Green parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter and the SPD politician Martin Schulz . The three AfD MPs involved were Udo Hemmelgarn , Petr Bystron and Hansjörg Müller ; The interferers included the author and management consultant Thorsten Schulte , who represents right-wing extremist conspiracy theories and historical revisionism, and the new-right media activist Rebecca Sommer, who allegedly insulted Peter Altmaier as a journalist and filmed this with a smartphone, as well as the AfD-affiliated YouTubers Daniela Scheible and “Elijah Tea". Thereupon the Bundestag dealt with the event in a current hour and the council of elders .
Bremen
For December 5, 2020, the group "lateral thinking421" called for a "nationwide festival for peace and freedom" with a planned 20,000 participants in Bremen . After a ban by the municipality and two rejected applications for temporary legal protection at the Administrative Court of Bremen and OVG Bremen , the applicant called the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG). The group continued to mobilize for the demonstration. The BVerfG accepted the municipality's justification that with the expected high number of participants, the minimum distances could not be observed. Protesters arrived despite the ban. The Bremen interior authorities had made it clear in advance that they would not allow a meeting and took police action against groups of anti-corona activists. 450 advertisements were written, 170 expulsions were enforced and an investigation was initiated against the original organizer for calling for participation in a prohibited gathering. Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer (SPD) said that Bremen had "set a signal for other cities too [...] that they have to defend themselves". One would act like that again and again. The "madness" (Mäurer) would have cost the taxpayer around 750,000 euros.
Hanover
In Hanover , the eleven-person group “We wake up” has been organizing weekly protests at the Maschsee against the corona measures since April 25, 2020 , the content and timing of which are based on the nationwide appeal “Not without us”. An invitation video alleges that a “ruling class” is using a virus “to panic entire strata of the population”, alleges a “high-tech dictatorship with total surveillance and control” and “microchips that are planted under the skin ". Germany had become a “surveillance state” overnight. The main speaker Carola Javid-Kisteln, a doctor and homeopath from Duderstadt , asked whether in the future "as last between 1933 and 1945" one would be " mouth dead and have nothing more to say". They recognize a "demonic, diabolical plan" behind the actions of the federal government. Other speakers also compared the measures with the Nazi dictatorship and called for an uprising against it. Many claimed that there was a risk of "compulsory vaccination" and collected signatures against it. The mask requirement is "oppression, that makes us slaves." In addition, they referred to reprimands when shopping without a protective mask. Many of the 350 or so participants upheld the Basic Law or signs demanding an obligation to resist or posters with the sentence “Don't give gates a chance”. One speaker claimed that Bill Gates donated millions to Der Spiegel magazine, buying its critical role from it. A speaker told police announcements to wear masks and to keep the minimum distance to neighbors on the newly founded initiative "Resistance2020". Up to 500 people took part in the “Demo for Basic Rights” on May 2nd.
On September 12, 2020, according to the police in Hanover, more than 1000 demonstrators took to the streets against the state corona measures. The train in the city center had to make a stop because the organizers asked the participants to keep the minimum distance from each other and to wear a mouth and nose cover. Slogans such as “Stop the pandemic of lies!”, “Corona is a raid” or “Against vaccination , muzzle, state violence, lying press , traitors” were on T-shirts and posters . There were counter-demonstrations from the Left Youth or the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB).
A demonstration of the lateral thinking initiative on November 21, 2020 in Hanover, during which a speaker compared herself to Sophie Scholl , attracted attention . She introduced herself as a 22 year oldJana from Kassel and said, "I feel like Sophie Scholl, because I've been active in the resistance for months, giving speeches, going to demos, distributing flyers and also registering meetings since yesterday." Numerous prominent personalities sharply criticized Jana's statements, including also Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
Munich
On May 9, 2020, around 3,000 people demonstrated against the infection protection regulations on Marienplatz . Only 80 participants were registered. The participants stood tightly packed without observing minimum distances, for the most part without a mouth and nose covering. The police unsuccessfully asked for minimum distances to be observed, but allowed the demonstration to continue for reasons of proportionality and only cleared up a fringe event frequented by 25 right-wing extremists.
At a demonstration on May 16, 2020, the Munich police pursued a new strategy in response to the previous demonstration on Marienplatz. After the limit of 1,000 approved demonstrators on Theresienwiese was reached, the police cordoned them off. According to estimates by the Munich police, up to 2,500 other people were found outside the site. In contrast to the participants in the cordoned-off area, the minimum distances were often not observed. The approximately 1000 police officers on duty asked to leave the area outside the Theresienwiese and intercepted other people at an early stage. 600 dismissals were issued, personal details were recorded 200 times and 20 reports of violations of the Infection Protection Act were issued. Several people were temporarily detained. According to police spokesman Marcus da Gloria Martins , incitement of the demonstrators, who were predominantly part of the bourgeois camp, was prevented and the distance rules could be observed.
According to police estimates, 10,000 participants came to the main rally on September 12, 2020, more than twice as many as announced by the organizer, the initiative lateral thinking 089 . Previously, the Bavarian Administrative Court had overturned a participant restriction imposed by the city of Munich on 1,000 protesters. Because more people took part in the previous demonstration than were allowed (3000 instead of the allowed 500) and many participants did not wear a mask, the train was stopped by the police and canceled by the organizer. The main rally on Theresienwiese also had to be interrupted after an hour due to non-compliance with the distance rules and the mask requirement. At the rally, speakers called for the immunity of Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn to be lifted and for Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder to be observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The ex-television pastor Jürgen Fliege also appeared as a speaker. The police recorded 120 reports of violating the mask rules, resisting law enforcement officers, insulting them and assaulting them. Around 900 people protested against the event on Goetheplatz under the motto “Solidarity instead of right-wing conspiracy madness”; Speeches were made against right-wing ideology, anti-Semitism and racism .
The specialist information center for right-wing extremism (firm) counted at least 40 right-wing extremists at rallies in September. Among the demonstrators were representatives of the right-wing magazine Compact, which was monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution , as well as numerous MPs from the AfD . The association "Munich is colorful" called in an initial 2021 published brochure as an example of anti-Semitic incidents during the rallies one shown at a demonstration in Munich photomontage , could be seen on the way people by uniformed whose emblem one Star of David is modeled and the Inscription "ZION", be forcibly vaccinated .
In February 2021, several corona skeptics car parades with up to 144 vehicles took place in Munich. There were also numerous violations and provocations.
On March 13, 2021, the police broke up a rally with several thousand participants in front of the state parliament because of violations of the mask requirement and compliance with minimum distances. However, not all participants complied with the request to leave the demo.
Nuremberg
On May 9th, 2020 a peaceful demonstration "Reading for Democracy" to uphold the Basic Law took place in Nuremberg in the morning, which ended according to plan after 45 minutes. Another demonstration followed at 2 p.m., which was attended by many more than the 50 registered people. It was directed against a "mouthguard obligation" and alleged "compulsory vaccination". Some participants claimed that Bill Gates wanted to rule their bodies and promoted the Resistance 2020 group . Several well-known right-wing extremists from the hooligan and yellow vests scene took part. Individual groups chanted "resistance" and "freedom". Many participants crowded and refused masks and minimum distance. Because of the crowd of around 2000 participants, the rally was not dissolved. Mayor Marcus König (CSU) described them as a similar mass crowd in Munich on the same day as a “source of infection” and announced that further demonstrations would only be allowed outside the city center. According to Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU), participants in Nuremberg asked passers-by to remove mouth and nose protection. He announced that he would prevent such harassment and endangerment of others, intentional violations of the distance rules and influence by right-wing extremists in the future and that the police would strictly enforce the conditions.
In response to the events on May 9, the city of Nuremberg banned demonstrations in the city center and moved them to the outskirts with sufficient meeting space. On the following Saturday, May 16, 2020, three demonstrations took place at the same time: 650 people demonstrated in the parking lot of the Meistersingerhalle , 600 in the Wöhrder Wiese and 50 in the Marienbergpark . The demonstrations were all peaceful.
In the further course there were weekly demonstrations on the Wöhrder Wiese every Saturday, in which around 500 people took part. These were organized by the "Interest Group Wöhrder Wiese" (Interest Group WöWi), which has been part of the lateral thinking network since July 2020 as an offshoot 911 .
Stuttgart
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In Stuttgart "711 lateral thinking" (established in early 2020 under the name calling code Stuttgart) weekly demonstrations against the rules and Corona Fundamental Rights.
On April 11, 2020, around 20 people demonstrated on Stuttgart's Schlossplatz against the ban on gatherings imposed by the city as an anti-pandemic measure. Around 50 people came to the second (the first registered) demonstration against the corona measures on April 18, 2020 after the Federal Constitutional Court lifted the city ban. Between 350 and 500 people attended the third demonstration on April 25, 2020. The requirement of maintaining the distance was ignored several times. The city then announced that it would tighten the requirements for further rallies of this type and choose a larger site. The IT entrepreneur Michael Ballweg announced further demonstrations on the Cannstatter Wasen .
Ballweg called for new parliamentary elections in October 2020. He declared that he did not tolerate any radical ideas from the left or the right and stood up for freedom of expression. Because of an allegedly distorted reporting by some media, journalists willing to talk should first give written assurance of his initiative that they will “report truthfully, impartially and completely” and, above all, not exercise “ censorship ”. On Twitter, Ballweg initially affirmed the German corona rules with a view to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy , but then took over and then disseminated empirically unfounded theses by Sucharit Bhakdi and numerous contributions from KenFM on the pandemic. On April 6, he posted a comic picture by the artist Ben Garrison , popular in the Alt-Right initiative , depicting Bill Gates as Adolf Hitler with syringes in the shape of a swastika , and commented: "Very frightening what @BillGates has for ideas."
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According to the organizers, up to 5,000 participants demonstrated on May 2, 2020 on the Cannstatter Wasen, 2,500 more than were registered. The demonstration was peaceful and without police intervention. The speakers were Ballweg and the lawyer Ralf Ludwig, co-founder of Resistance 2020 . He feared an "absolute health check" in which everyone should be vaccinated. For the next, also peaceful demonstration on the Cannstatter Wasen on May 9th, 5000 participants came, according to other information up to 10,000 participants. The announced keynote speaker was Ken Jebsen. In the Kursaal Bad Cannstatt around 200 people demonstrated at the counter rally “Solidarity. Liberty rights. Clear edge against the right ”.
On May 16, 2020, three men who wanted to take part in the demonstration by “lateral thinking 711” were injured by up to 40 black-clad and masked perpetrators on the Cannstatter Wasen. Two victims were hospitalized. The Stuttgart public prosecutor's office is investigating a suspicion of an attempted homicide. The May 16 demonstration was attended by more than 5,000 people. About 200 participants took part in the demonstration on May 30th.
On March 13, 2021, around 1,500 “lateral thinkers” gathered for a registered rally and then marched through the city center in larger groups. An object was thrown at a television team from Südwestrundfunk (SWR) and repeatedly verbally attacked. Other media representatives who had pitched their tents in front of the state parliament to report on the state elections taking place the following day were also insulted by rally participants in chants as " lying press ".
On April 3, 2021, Holy Saturday , around 15,000 people gathered in Stuttgart, most of them without masks and without a minimum distance. The police recorded 260 reports and stressed that in view of the "peacefulness" they could not intervene. Several observers criticized the police's unilateral approach towards counter-demonstrators and the officers' cooperative behavior with the rally participants. The motto of the event was “Fundamental rights are non-negotiable”. According to a correspondent for Deutschlandfunk (DLF), journalists were bullied and physically attacked, as was the case with other “lateral thinking” demos. In response to the attacks, the DLF pointed out that freedom of the press is also part of fundamental rights . A live link from tagesschau24 had to be canceled after the team claimed to have been thrown with a hard object. The DJV chairman Frank Überall stated that “the self-proclaimed lateral thinkers” once again had no qualms about attacking reporters as the target of their anger, and criticized “the obvious inaction of the police officers” who did nothing to protect journalists. In addition, the Ministry for Social Affairs and Integration Baden-Württemberg expressed incomprehension about the approval of the rally by the city of Stuttgart.
After the Baden-Württemberg Administrative Court in Mannheim confirmed the city's ban on two demonstrations on April 16, 2021 and the Federal Constitutional Court rejected two urgent motions from the organizers on April 17, around 1000 people still gathered in Stuttgart, according to the police. The police stopped the unauthorized elevators and group formations, determined the personal details of 700 participants, issued evictions and, according to their own statements, punished more than 1000 violations of the obligation to wear mouth and nose protection in the inner city area. The “lateral thinking” founder Michael Ballweg was also led away at an unauthorized rally. Around 400 counter-demonstrators were in the city.
Heidelberg
At the beginning of April, the lawyer Beate Bahner appeared in Heidelberg as the spokesperson for protests. She described the corona protection measures as illegal "tyranny" and "the greatest legal scandal that the Federal Republic of Germany has ever experienced". She claimed that the Infection Protection Act only allowed measures against the sick, not against “83 million healthy people”. The Federal Constitutional Court rejected your urgent application to lift the protective measures for formal reasons. Then she announced a "Corona Resurrection Ordinance" to reopen all shops. She called the police on April 12th ( Easter Sunday ) because she felt threatened by passers-by on the street. The officers took her into custody for endangering others and herself and took her to a Heidelberg psychiatric clinic, where a doctor decided to keep her there for the time being. In a phone call published as a video, Bahner portrayed her treatment as arbitrarily eliminating a political opponent, claiming that police officers brutally abused her while she was still in the clinic and that clinic staff did not help her. However, she did not file a criminal complaint. She was released from the clinic on April 14th. On April 15, the Heidelberg public prosecutor's office summoned her for questioning because of her calls for unannounced protests. Her supporters, including the vaccination opponent Hans Tolzin and the AfD member of the state parliament, Stefan Räpple , demonstrated unannounced on April 15 in front of the police building for them and against the protective measures. The police tolerated the rally despite the minimum distances no longer being observed in the long term. Bahner, outwardly unharmed, said sarcastically that one should not believe the reports of their mistreatment from the “right-wing lying press”; in fact, she fell off her bike while drunk. The appearance split their followers; some saw it as a "staging" and did not want to support Bahner any further. The Heidelberg police are investigating Bahner's supporters for violating the conditions.
On Saturday, April 18, there was a regular, registered demonstration at Heidelberg University Square.
Lake Constance
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The lateral thinking initiative called for a "chain of peace on the 30th anniversary of German unity " on October 3, 2020 around Lake Constance . According to the police, around 11,000 participants on the German side did not succeed in forming a closed human chain. The organizers initially spoke of 60,000 to 70,000 participants, later they reduced this number themselves to 30,000 to 35,000 participants. The conditions imposed by the city of Konstanz included a ban on "Reich war flags, imperial flags and symbols that have a clear reference to the crimes of National Socialism and which establish a connection to the current corona pandemic". Such symbols were not to be seen according to SWR. A mask requirement did not apply if the minimum distance was observed. The following day, according to the police, “a maximum of 2,000 people gathered at the rallies of the lateral thinking initiative ”. Some of the registered demonstrations had to be canceled due to a lack of participants. The number of participants on both days was well below the organizers' expectations and was accompanied by counter-protest. The lateral thinking demonstrations and the 24 registered counter-demonstrations were assessed as predominantly peaceful.
Leipzig
27 demonstrations, meetings and rallies have been registered for November 7, 2020 in Leipzig. The largest of these was the demonstration registered by the lateral thinking initiative , which was initially relocated by the city of Leipzig to the parking spaces of the New Fair outside the city center, which the administrative court initially confirmed in an urgent procedure on Friday evening. However, the Bautzen Higher Administrative Court later overturned this decision and decided that the demonstration with 16,000 people could take place on the centrally located Augustusplatz, subject to conditions, while the march through the city was prohibited with reference to the Saxon Corona Protection Ordinance. Calls for participation in the rally were also made by right-wing Compact magazine, the NPD , the “ Pro Chemnitz ” alliance and other right-wing radicals.
Between 20,000 (according to the police) and 45,000 people (according to the research group Totally of the Sociology Department of the University of Leipzig ) took part in the event. The speakers on the stage included the pastor and former GDR civil rights activist Christoph Wonneberger , as well as a 12-year-old boy who drew parallels between Leipzig in 1989 and this November 7, 2020. Signs and shirts of rally participants alluded to the US election, also held at the beginning of November 2020, " Trump Forever" and "Dear Trump than Merkel".
Later in the day, the rally was declared over by the police because the participants did not adhere to the corona protective measures (the necessary safety distances and mouth protection requirements) and the demonstration had only been approved for up to 16,000 people. Nevertheless, after the dissolution, thousands of participants marched across the Leipzig inner city ring without the police being able to effectively prevent this. Hundreds of right-wing extremists, including numerous hooligans, also attended the rally.
While the events were essentially peaceful during the day, the situation escalated in the afternoon and evening with a roadblock by the police, which tried to prevent the still many thousands of demonstrators from marching on through the inner city ring. During and after the demonstration, the participants attacked police officers and civilians. On the part of the demonstrators, inter alia. Pyrotechnics and pepper spray used by the police. According to media reports, the journalists' union DJU reported at least 32 attacks on journalists, most of which had come from participants in the large “lateral thinking” demonstration but also from counter-demonstrators. The DJU itself reports that at least 38 media representatives were prevented from working, nine of them by the police, and that several journalists were attacked, some of them massively physically.
According to the police, 102 possible criminal offenses were recorded in the entire city area in connection with the demonstrations on that day, including one serious breach of the peace, ten breaches of the peace , 14 physical attacks on law enforcement officers, nine resistances against law enforcement officers, 13 bodily harm and 11 damage to property. 13 provisional arrests and 18 custody were carried out and around 140 corona offenses were recorded. The incident, described by the police as a serious breach of the peace, took place in the Connewitz district in the evening when two buses with departing demonstrators were attacked and damaged by alleged counter-demonstrators. Later that evening, barricades were set alight there and a police station was attacked.
In parallel to the anti-corona rallies, several hundred counter-demonstrators had also gathered at various registered events in Leipzig.
The day after, the lawyer and “lateral thinking” spokesman Ralf Ludwig welcomed the participation of right-wing extremists like the NPD : You are demonstrating for freedom and democracy and “if the NPD joins exactly this, then that’s a success for us”. Shortly before, the lawyer and "lateral thinking" spokesman Markus Haintz had shared a post by neo-Nazi Michael Brück on his Telegram channel in which he was pleased about an acquittal for a violation of the Corona Protection Ordinance. Haintz also wrote of a "historic acquittal".
A “lateral thinker” rally planned for November 21 in Leipzig was canceled at short notice by the organizer - although hundreds of people were already there - because the assembly authorities had not accepted the organizer's “incomplete mask release certificate”. In addition, there were several unauthorized spontaneous demonstrations both by opponents of the corona policy and by counter-demonstrators. The police were in large numbers to keep the two camps away from each other in several places in the city center. AfD MP Hans-Thomas Tillschneider also took part in the rally against the Corona measures on the market square . Zeit Online reported that there were “increasingly drunk neo-Nazis and hooligans” in the front row. The slogans called also had “no relation to the corona pandemic”, but “clearly came from the Reich citizen milieu”. The police reported 23 crimes, and the German Association of Journalists in Saxony reported two physical attacks on journalists. In reactions it was emphasized that the police had the situation better under control this time, but there was also criticism.
Dresden
Despite a ban imposed by the Dresden Administrative Court and the Bautzen Higher Administrative Court, hundreds of participants gathered for a “lateral thinking” demonstration on March 13, 2021. There were violations of corona regulations such as maintaining minimum distances and wearing mouth and nose protection. According to the police, the mood was very irritable. Photos and videos showed police barriers being broken and police officers knocked to the ground. Twelve police officers were injured. On the YouTube livestream of controversial journalist Martin Lejeune , who is close to the “lateral thinking” movement, a protester threatened to come back with a gun next time, adding “if I shoot two down”. The police issued 49 reprimands, 390 administrative offenses for violating the Corona Protection Ordinance were reported and 32 criminal offenses were determined. According to press representatives, there were also attacks and insults against journalists. In front of the congress center, the group “Heidenau wavelength”, classified as right, had registered a rally, but instead of the registered 150 participants, a total of 1000 to 2000 had appeared. Calls like "The pandemic is over" could be heard. When several hundred rally participants started moving towards the vaccination center, the police opened several water cannons in front of it to protect the building, which was successful, according to a police spokesman. Several politicians condemned the violence, and on the part of the Greens and Leftists the police and the Saxon Ministry of the Interior as employer were accused of failure.
Bonn
On October 10, 2020, the local initiative Together2020 held a demonstration on the Hofgartenwiese in front of the university, in which around 600 people took part. There was also a counter-demonstration.
kassel
According to police estimates, 15,000 to 20,000 people came together for a “lateral thinking” demo on March 20, 2021 in Kassel, although according to the decision of the Hessian Administrative Court, only 5,000 and 1,000 people were allowed in only two locations. The majority of the demonstrators did not adhere to the distance and mask requirements. The police defended their tactics in a statement that "the temporary waiver of coercion and persecution measures in the weighing of legal interests was necessary and appropriate". A water cannon was used when bottles were thrown at police officers. A “consistent prevention” of unauthorized moves outside of the two places would have led, according to the police, “to a not inconsiderable number of injuries”. Journalists were attacked and verbally abused by participants in the rally, and a video showed a cameraman from the Hessian Broadcasting Corporation being attacked from behind. The CDU politician Martin Heipertz appeared on a stage with the statement that he was against COVID-19 vaccinations because, in his opinion, the vaccines were based on abortions. The Lord Mayor of Kassel, Christian Geselle (SPD), commented on the event with the words, "Protection against infection, the democratic exercise of freedom of assembly and also human decency [were] largely absent". Pictures and videos caused criticism and outrage, showing police officers from Thuringia pulling a counter-demonstrator to the ground and dragging it to one side, a Thuringian police officer pushing another counter-demonstrator's face in the direction of her bicycle handlebar and a police officer using the counter-demonstrator Fist is punched in the face. A photo on Twitter showed a policewoman forming a heart with her hands next to a “thinking outside the box” rally participant carrying a sign saying “Protect our children from this madness”. The police headquarters in North Hesse said they would deal with these issues intensively. The Thuringian police also wrote that criticism of the operation of the operation was always taken seriously and that the operation would be evaluated. According to Christopher Vogel from the Mobile Advisory Team against Racism and Right-Wing Extremism, the Kassel “lateral thinking” rally participants formed a rather heterogeneous mass. According to Vogel, many would feel very comfortable in a pose between Sophie Scholl and Pippi Longstocking .
More protests
From April 2020 rallies against the state pandemic took place in many other cities. Some of them exceeded the registered or permitted number of people or were unannounced, so that they were disbanded by the police. There have been rallies so far in the following places:
| date | place | description | Participants (for example) may be banned |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 25, 2020 | Kempten | 320 | |
| 1st May 2020 | Aue | 210 | |
| 1st May 2020 | Zwickau | > 100 | |
| May 2, 2020 | Erfurt | 200 | |
| May 2, 2020 | Gera | 300 | |
| May 2, 2020 | Krumbach | 500 | |
| May 2, 2020 | Memmingen | 150 (despite cancellation) | |
| May 9, 2020 | Gera | 750 | |
| May 16, 2020 | Frankfurt am Main |
_Protest_against_corona_measures_Frankfurt_2020-05-16.jpg)
Protest against corona restrictions in Frankfurt am Main , May 16, 2020
Hundreds of people took part in a demonstration by opponents of the Corona measures on May 16, 2020 on the Roßmarkt in Frankfurt am Main . A participant in the rally showed the Nazi salute . The demonstration was accompanied by counter-protests in which more than 1,000 people took part. Anti-fascist groups disrupted the demonstration on the Roßmarkt. A man tried to push a speaker off the Gutenberg memorial . The megaphone was snatched from a former Pegida activist who also wanted to give a speech. |
1500, including counter-demonstrators in the majority |
| May 16, 2020 | Schwerin | 650 | |
| May 16, 2020 | Passau | 275 | |
| November 14, 2020 | Frankfurt am Main | dissolved after non-compliance with hygiene and distance rules using immediate compulsion (including the use of water cannons ) | 600 |
| November 14, 2020 | Karlsruhe | 900 to 1000 | |
| November 14, 2020 | regensburg | 1000 | |
| November 14, 2020 | Aichach | 800 to 1000 | |
| November 14, 2020 | Dusseldorf | The organizer of the demonstration on the Rhine meadows was the “lateral thinking 211” initiative. Another smaller demonstration took place in the old town. | about 500 |
| November 14, 2020 | Bonn | A fine of 20,000 euros was imposed on the organizers. | 400 |
| November 14, 2020 | Aachen | A number of participants tried to circumvent the mask requirement with medical certificates. | 250 |
| February 6, 2021 | Erfurt | As part of the event, wreaths and wreaths were laid down which, according to their own representation, should serve to commemorate victims of dictatorship. On the part of the Buchenwald Memorial , the organizing association Bürger für Deutschland was accused of historical relativism. The appearance of the former pastor Ricklef Münnich at the rally caused criticism from within the church. | 150 |
| March 20, 2021 | Aue | 1000 | |
| April 17, 2021 | Wiesbaden | The rally in the Reisinger facilities ended prematurely. Afterwards, the unauthorized demonstration march towards the city center was surrounded by the police and disbanded. | 1200 |
Right-wing organizers
The right-wing extremist group Pro Chemnitz registered a demonstration for 500 people in Chemnitz for April 20, 2020 . The city administration forbade it, but after an urgent application by the organizers, the administrative court in Chemnitz allowed it with strict conditions for 15 people. On Karl Marx Monument gathered, police said up to 300 followers, some of which have not been removed despite police request. The police reported 40 violations of the Saxon corona protection ordinance as well as resistance against law enforcement officers, attempted dangerous bodily harm and the use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations . In the last instance, the Saxon Higher Administrative Court banned a demonstration by Pro Chemnitz that was registered for April 24, 2020. The meeting was dissolved.
Also Pegida in Dresden wanted to demonstrate on 20 April. The municipal public order office allowed a rally for 80 people, but following public criticism, the city administration limited the number of participants to 15 people in accordance with the ruling of the Chemnitz Administrative Court. Thirty counter-demonstrators gathered at a greater distance. A rally allowed for 50 participants on April 27, Pegida founder Lutz Bachmann canceled , demanded civil disobedience via livestream and rushed against the corona restrictions.
On April 22, 2020, AfD district councilor Steffen Janich invited to a “walk for our basic rights” in Pirna via Facebook , but did not register it and denied that it should be a meeting. The right-wing extremist "wavelength" movement is said to have mobilized for this in the network. According to the police, around 180 people gathered at the town hall, including, according to Domokos Szabó ( Sächsische Zeitung ), well-known entrepreneurs, craftsmen, heads from the right-wing scene and conspiracy theorists. They held up signs that said “Corona madness” and “vaccine slaves”, insulted the police officers present as “ Merkel thugs” or “wankers” and compared them with the “ police in the GDR and in the Weimar region Republic ". According to witnesses, many did not wear masks and did not keep their distance. The police asked Janich to enforce the conditions and threatened to otherwise dissolve the meeting. Many participants refused to put on mouth guards. Shortly afterwards Janich ended the meeting. He is a police officer in Dresden and founder of the first AfD district association in Saxony. His police department opened an investigation against him. On April 29, 2020, city councils from various parties and restaurateurs in Pirna called for another "walk" against the corona measures. 350 participants came. The police cleared the marketplace after 15 minutes and started investigations into violations of the Saxon Corona Protection Ordinance. On May 13th, around 200 people met at the market in Pirna following calls for a “walk” online. When the police wanted to break up the gathering, according to police, 30 "violent" officers attacked the officers and injured one of them. Eight criminal proceedings, including those for breach of the peace , were initiated.
After the “ wing ” of the AfD had formally dissolved on April 30, 2020, its leading representatives Andreas Kalbitz and Hans-Christoph Berndt organized a rally “Democracy instead of Corona madness” on May 6 in Cottbus on May 1, 2020 their initiative Zukunft Heimat a “wake-up call for civil rights”. Many other right-wing extremist AfD members and actors of the New Right are also relying on the corona crisis and are trying to dominate the protests against state measures in other cities as well. On May 1st in Aue NPD City Councilor Stefan Hartung organized a rally. It was approved for 30 people, but 180 other people wanted to do it. They tried to break through the police barriers, shouted "Resistance", "Take off masks" and "We are the people" and often did not keep the minimum distances despite police requests. Individuals attacked officials. The police determined the identity of 91 people and reported them for violating the Saxon Corona Protection Ordinance. On May 1st in Plauen, supporters of the extreme right-wing extremist party The III. Away , in Zwickau the right-wing “Voters' Initiative Future Zwickau”. Instead of the 25 approved participants, more than 100 came, including opponents. The AfD organized further rallies in Saxony. According to experts, right-wing extremists also tried to instrumentalize the corona protests in Erfurt and Gera.
In Freiburg im Breisgau on May 2, 2020 around 600 to 800 participants demonstrated against a gathering organized by the Freiburg district association of the AfD with the motto “Be vigilant! Demo for Life ”, attended by about 60 people. The applicable distance rules could not be adhered to at the counter-demonstration. The Bundestag member Tobias Pflüger (Die Linke) criticized that the police had “made far too little space available for the demonstrators”.
The demonstration in Gera on May 9th was announced by entrepreneur Peter Schmidt, a member of the CDU Economic Council , as a “walk” in the same way as Pegida. In the mobilization, he was helped by friends of the right-wing radicals from Gera. At the demonstration, a co-organizer showed a poster with a Star of David that relativized the Holocaust . In addition to Schmidt, the main speaker was Thuringia's FDP chairman Thomas Kemmerich , who was elected Prime Minister for a month with AfD votes in February 2020. He demonstrated with right-wing populists, corona deniers and conspiracy ideologues, without a mask and minimum distance, although there were a particularly large number of COVID-19 cases in the Greiz district. In response to strong criticism, including from the FDP, he initially defended his appearance and then apologized for it: he did not notice the audience during the demonstration. Most of the participants disregarded distance rules and did not wear a face mask.
Right-wing extremist Sven Liebich, observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, reported numerous, sometimes weekly, rallies in Halle (Saale) .
Classifications
Erik Peter ( taz ) described the participants as a “scene of conspiracy theorists” with “crude theories about the causes of the corona pandemic.” They combine the feeling of being lied to by the government and the media. They denied the danger of the virus, blamed Bill Gates in part for it, stoked fears of forced vaccinations, saw themselves as enlighteners, lateral thinkers or “the people” and took criticism of conspiracy myths as evidence of the “undemocratic mainstream”. Many also took part in the vigil for peace in 2014, others had only joined them since the corona crisis. Julius Betschka and Christoph Kluge ( Der Tagesspiegel ) describe the hygiene demonstrations as a “cross-front demonstration” “from far left to right-wing extremist”. According to Alex Rühle ( Süddeutsche Zeitung ) , the theses of the participants reveal “what crisis democratic societies are in”.
The rallies were classified as an "obvious risk of infection" not only because of the number of participants, but also because of the open rejection and disregard of the corona rules despite easing decisions. The association of “apparently completely normal citizens” with extremists, conspiracy theorists, Reich citizens, esotericists and opponents of vaccinations is also seen as a danger. Despite the differentiation of the organizers from “right-wing nuts”, participants repeatedly played down the Nazi crimes by comparing the Holocaust or suspected a Jewish world conspiracy behind the corona crisis. Right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists increasingly dominated the protests, demonized the media, portrayed politicians as puppets, rejected science and influenced countless followers through their channels. Many German domestic politicians also warned against this development. Contrary to the claim of the Corona protests to represent the people, a large majority of the population (81% on May 10th) affirms the federal government's crisis management according to current surveys.
Experts such as Sandro Witt (mobile advice against right-wing extremism in Thuringia; MOBIT) and Matthias Quent (Institute for Democracy and Civil Society; IDZ in Jena ) attribute the protests to the massive psychological, social and economic consequences of the pandemic. Anti-democratic and right-wing extremist actors tried to co-opt the protests for their own purposes, to turn people against each other, against science and against political leaders, for example by linking migration and hostility towards Muslims to the pandemic or portraying the crisis as a plot. In doing so, they increased the uncertainty of many people. Many activists who claim to be neither right nor left abused "dissatisfaction and naivety of fellow travelers and ultimately harm legitimate, democratic concerns such as the protection of basic rights", encouraged right-wing extremism and absurd conspiracy, endangered risk groups, and damaged democracy and social cohesion .
According to a study by ZEW Mannheim and Berlin's Humboldt University , such events were superspreader events . However, there is a contradiction to this assessment by the economic statistician Walter Krämer and the mathematician Thomas Rießinger , who see methodological deficiencies and biases in the study.
According to Tilman Steffen ( Die Zeit ), the protesters, “Resistance 2020” and restaurateurs are calling for a “right to infection”. The right of resistance claimed is a form of vigilante justice . Often the protest is not directed against specific restrictions, but against the way in which the government and parliament make and enforce decisions. Behind this, East German initiators have developed a distrust of politicians and the media that has been developing since the GDR era, which they transfer directly to an "opinion cartel of the established parties" in the Federal Republic. They took over the new right claim of a “terror of opinion” and, like common populism, faked simple solutions to complex problems. Popular is the narrative that the Robert Koch Institute first advised against protective masks and that the federal government had known the risk of a virus pandemic since 2012, but had not taken precautions. Any restriction of fundamental rights is rejected, although the balancing of fundamental rights against one another, such as freedom and physical integrity, is normal political and legal practice. Ralf Ludwig (Resistance 2020) demanded everyone's right to be able to infect themselves in a self-determined manner, but did not mention that anyone infected could infect others, i.e. endanger them. Prevention to protect life is therefore mocked as “dictatorship”. As in the case of “Merkel must go” demonstrations, Pegida and AfD responded to Angela Merkel's statements. In doing so, the protesters would accept that their image would be similar to that of right-wing populists and attract the same xenophobes. Therefore, the group "Resistance 2020" aroused the interest of the AfD, which in turn is currently mobilizing against the lockdown.
The psychologist Pia Lamberty warned with a view to appeals like that of Attila Hildmann that especially stories of a dictatorship, which should be established on a "day X", can mobilize people to violence. According to studies, belief in conspiracies is associated with a "stronger affinity for violence and a stronger legitimation of violence" and less use of democratic opportunities to influence. The current protests could potentially lead to attacks.
Political scientist Tom Mannewitz saw parallels with the Pegida movement. Here too, “concerned citizens” initially came together to demonstrate. Over time, the group of demonstrators then became smaller, more homogeneous and politically more radical.
Brandenburg's constitution protection chief Jörg Müller warned that the protests were “a dangerous mixture” of conspiracy theorists, extremists, Reich citizens, preppers , AfD supporters and ordinary citizens. The NPD and the III. Weg would have discovered the topic for themselves first and linked it with conspiracy theories. To call the infection protection "Enabling Act" is "historically forgotten, stupid and a border crossing", because the historical Enabling Act led to the World War and the Holocaust. Rally names like "Covid-1984" claimed that they were in an Orwellian surveillance system. After Pegida waned, the same scene in East German cities like Cottbus sensed a new opportunity due to the corona crisis. A “toxic” network of Pegida, Identitarians, AfD, the new right-wing Institute for State Policy and the right-wing extremist associations “Zukunft Heimat” and One Percent for Our Country had long since formed there. In some places the AfD is promoting the rallies and organizing them. Nationwide, she does not have a clear position on this, but the right-wing extremist "wing" has only seemingly disbanded and continues to dominate the AfD. The President of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Stephan J. Kramer , also said that “clearly more concrete approaches for a national and ethnic revolution are recognizable”. Right-wing extremist parties such as the NPD, “ The Third Way ” and “ The Rights ” tried to gain broader links with society under the pretext of the protests. Kramer spoke of a grassroots movement ; a "kind of anti-corona measures collection movement" is "fed by conspiracy theorists, right-wing extremists". At the beginning of 2021, Kramer said with a view to the storm on the Capitol in Washington and statements of approval and solidarity from the right-wing scene in Germany, the events there would also “motivate right-wing extremists, Reich citizens and radical corona deniers”. Kramer recalled the attempted assault on the Reichstag in August 2020; In view of the increasingly heated mood at corona protests, "an escalation like in Washington is possible" in Germany. Attacks on politicians when appearing in public are also to be feared.
The FAZ pointed out that as of May 16, 2020 right-wing extremist parties such as the NPD , Der III. Weg and The rights to participate in the protests. The Federal Criminal Police Office also stated that there were indications that right-wing extremists wanted to take advantage of the protests and tried to “exploit the current situation for their propaganda purposes”.
The media scientist Bernhard Pörksen warned journalists against devaluing the corona protests across the board and dismissing the participants as “weirdos” and “hysterics”. The majority ratios are different, the communication climate should not be determined by the loud and angry. In view of the “wave of polarization”, a “respectful confrontation” and the “struggle for the better argument” are necessary. Nonetheless, conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites have to be called that and, particularly in the case of anti-Semitic agitation, they have to be sharply opposed. Legal scholar Oliver Lepsius argued similarly . He saw a threat to fundamental rights as a given, but also said that freedom of expression was given at all times. Legal violations by individual participants must not be used as an opportunity to restrict the freedom of assembly again.
The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang , also said that there is a risk that "right-wing extremists will put themselves at the forefront of the Corona demonstrations with their images of enemies and goals that disrupt the state, which are currently led by the majority of citizens loyal to the Constitution. However, extremists would “use the current situation just as they did in the so-called refugee crisis”. What began on the Internet with propaganda, conspiracy theories and misinformation is now being carried into the real world.
A survey commissioned by the ARD magazine Kontraste at Infratest dimap showed that among 500 respondents, 17 percent considered the corona crisis to be a pretext for politics to permanently restrict civil liberties. 38 percent said that among their relatives, friends or acquaintances there were at least some who believed that politicians were using the coronavirus as a pretext to restrict civil liberties. Two thirds of those questioned said that they saw conspiracy myths as a growing threat to democracy.
Josef Schuster , President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany , expressed his concern about the demonstrations, because Corona "clearly serves as a catalyst for conspiracy myths and also for anti-Semitism ". Every participant in such a demonstration has to look at “who he has in common with” and “ultimately also have to answer for it”, because participation indirectly supports the arguments of anti-Semites. He described comparisons of the current situation with that of the Jews during the Nazi era as "unspeakable" . Since the beginning of the Corona crisis, no citizen, according to Schuster, has experienced the persecution that Jews had experienced from 1933 up to their extermination . Anyone who compares “the situation today with what happened in the Third Reich ”, who feels like Sophie Scholl , “who had to pay for her commitment with her life”, has “no idea of history, including recent German history”. With reference to the attempted storming of the Reichstag in the course of the demonstrations on August 29, 2020, Schuster said: "If in 2020 the Reich flag flies directly in front of the entrance to the German Bundestag, something is going wrong."
After the Berlin demonstration on August 29, 2020, the journalist and publicist said Heribert Prantl , that "abstruse" as the demand for an immediate resignation of the government, although "bear" must, however, the limits of the tolerable went where violence and sedition were beginning . The calculation of the right-wing extremist groups to mix with the sympathizers of the "lateral thinkers" must be thwarted. Those who want to remain serious in their criticism should not accept their presence indifferently and approvingly. According to Prantl, there is a twofold imperative to keep a distance: to maintain a distance from one another, but above all to the right-wing extremists.
In the opinion of the lawyer and journalist Ronen Steinke , all demonstrators in front of the Reichstag are united by the enemy image “foreigners [...] to whom they ascribe power. And they always include, surprise, the Jews. "These" conspiracy believers of all stripes "are anti-Semites and racists and the common core of their ideology is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
According to the assessment of the social scientist and anti-Semitism commissioner of the state of Berlin Samuel Salzborn since August 2020 , the demonstration participants are connected “by a conspiracy worldview that has an anti-democratic and anti-Semitic core”. It turns "in the affect against democratic decisions" and is "underlaid with anti-Semitic motives". As the protests increased, one had to assume "that the number of people who do not even know who they are standing with on the street is extremely small". By making comparisons with the Nazi era, according to Salzborn, "the conspiracy believers" fantasize about a victim role that is supposed to demonize and delegitimize democratic politics ". On the one hand, portray yourself as a courageous resistance fighter and defame political opponents as Nazis and fascists, on the other hand, such comparisons would relativize the actual horrors and crimes of the Nazi dictatorship. Salzborn sees this as a “double instrumentalization in the spirit of anti-Semitic perpetrator-victim reversal”.
According to the findings of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution at the beginning of September 2020, right-wing extremists were the spokesmen at more than 90 rallies against the corona measures nationwide.
Isolde Charim (taz) sees the demands of the hygiene demonstrators as the “return of the neoliberal message”. The overemphasis on personal freedom and the rejection of state intervention in the market coincided with the neoliberal interpretation of the concept of freedom. The demonstrators internalized this notion of freedom, which was redefined by neoliberalism.
According to the political scientist Josef Holnburger , "Children are regularly staged by the scene". This allows "a movement to be strongly emotionalized". After the organizers of the lateral thinking movement around Ballweg initially distanced themselves from the radicals and right-wing extremists after the demo at the end of August and the “self-proclaimed storm on the Reichstag”, nothing is heard from now. Holnburger thinks that the organizers have recognized “that they need these mobilization forces”. Cristian Vooren ( Zeit Online ) wrote that, unlike previous protest movements, the “lateral thinkers” - some of whom spread the QAnon conspiracy myth of children held captive and abused for experiments - use children not only for their content, but “even actively for the best interests of the child [endanger] that they pretend to stand up for ”because they did not adhere to requirements such as the requirement to keep a safe distance and mask requirement and“ also consciously take the risk ”that the police will take action against them. In this way, they abused children as “ protective shields ” because they were counting on the fact that “the police would then hold back”.
Olaf Sundermeyer ( rbb ) wrote after the Leipzig rally on November 7th, 2020 that the "impotence of the police", who are holding back in order not to confirm the allegation of an alleged "Corona dictatorship" in Germany, were the Corona deniers fill with a “feeling of empowerment”. “Hooligans and right-wing extremists as ' Legida '” had already tried in vain to create this “Leipzig moment” at the height of the refugee crisis ; the protesters against the COVID measures are now trying to do the same thing, namely to “ pick up on the turning point of 1989 ”. The power of this loud and well-organized minority, which is becoming increasingly radicalized, has grown. Many hoped "in the midst of the state and social crisis [...] [to] put the lever on the foundations of the state".
In mid-November 2020, Lower Saxony's constitution protection president, Bernhard Witthaut , spoke of the propagation of “subversion fantasies against the German government” and a “potential for radicalization”. Attacks from the movement of corona deniers and measures opponents cannot be ruled out, with Witthaut referring to an arson attack on the Robert Koch Institute . In Lower Saxony, the organization “lateral thinking” has not yet been explicitly observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which, according to Witthaut, could change. The development of the movement must be kept in view “before something worse happens”.
After opponents of the corona protection measures in the Bundestag had harassed MPs on the sidelines of the debate about a new infection protection law, Thomas Kaspar ( Frankfurter Rundschau ) wrote of a "dirty demagogy" of these actors. Anyone who played down the barely prevented entry into the Reichstag at the end of August 2020 as a stray of an otherwise justified protest movement should "wake up with cold, dirty water after this pouring". It is "about systematically controlled violence against buildings, people and, in the end, institutions of democracy". Here are “enemies of the constitution at work”. In addition, according to Kaspar, a lawyer called on the “lateral thinker” in Facebook groups to call and disturb MPs, and one commentator called a published list of supporters of the draft law a “death list”. Alexandra Föderl-Schmid rated the incidents in the Süddeutsche Zeitung as an "attack on representatives of a constitutional organ, the heart of democracy". The activists were " [not] interested in a discourse "; the aim of "this concerted and controlled action" was to undermine the functioning of parliament.
Maram Stern , Vice President of the World Jewish Congress , described it in early 2021 as "particularly disgusting" when people who protested against the Covid-19 measures claim a victim role that equates to the victims of the Holocaust . He does not know "what could be more shameful than to attack the history of suffering in the face of the very old survivors of Auschwitz , Majdanek and thousands of other concentration camps and ghettos ". That is "the epitome of lack of empathy, delusion and cynicism".
Julius Geiler ( Tagesspiegel ) (2021) pointed out that during the Corona protests, right-wing and right-wing extremist activists, sometimes with forged ID cards, posed as press representatives and thus took pictures and remained unmolested by police measures. As examples, he cites the Berlin NPD state chairman and “ autonomous nationalist ” Sebastian Schmidtke , the “people's teacher” Nikolai Nerling and Matthäus Westfal alias “activist man”, who also took part - on Nerling's side - in the storming of the Reichstag stairs.
In March 2021, the Catholic Bishop of Augsburg, Bertram Meier , accused the lateral thinker of “abuse of religion” and “instrumentalization of religious symbols”. The Evangelical Lutheran regional bishop in the Augsburg church district, Axel Piper, also distanced himself from the movement and said that he was annoyed by the lateral thinker “this from the outset bad acceptance by the other”. The sect representative of the Protestant regional church Matthias Pöhlmann had previously warned against instrumentalisation by the movement.
According to the author and right-wing extremism expert Karolin Schwarz , the public media within the "lateral thinking" movement are the government's "court reporters". When it is said that there is no criticism of the government, what it really means is that it is not criticizing the kind of criticism that would be desired in this spectrum. However, this “criticism” desired by “lateral thinking” is based on “wrong assumptions, wrong information and conspiracy narratives”. In addition, Schwarz noted a “strong cognitive dissonance ”: If the media reported something that fits into the narrative of the movement, these reports would easily be disseminated in the relevant Telegram channels. The accusation that the media were " brought into line " as it said in a call for a rally in Frankfurt in April 2021 she put on a par with the use of other NS -terms in the allegations on the part of "thinking" movement. She attributed physical attacks on journalists to the fact that the movement “believes it is right” and that journalists are “against freedom” from this point of view. The protection of the freedom of the press by the police had "often not been guaranteed in the past few months".
Sociologists Matthias Quent and Christoph Richter struck six characteristic dimensions to describe the resistance of "thinking" and other illegal government Corona measures ( heterodoxy , Ent solid linearization , myths, populism , anti-Semitism and social Darwinism ) and used in accordance with the respective first letter the term HEMPAS - Protests. Since, according to the authors, "especially in the pandemic, social inequality as well as structural anti-Semitism, racism and patriarchal structures become particularly visible, a new emancipatory protest movement could have formed in the pandemic ". However, their “openness to the far right” led the movement “on anti-democratic paths, in which, for example, QAnon conspiracy narratives ” could have spread.
Sociometry
The scientists Robert Schäfer, Nadine Frei and Oliver Nachtwey examined the movement in terms of its social structure. Surveys in lateral thinker Telegram groups formed the basis; the team evaluated 1,150 questionnaires that they had sent out to members of these groups. The study provides insight, but is not representative, including because at the time of study more than 100,000 members of the movement were registered in these chat groups. The statements of the study are based on ethnographic observations , the quantitative online survey, qualitative interviews and the document analysis .
According to the study, the protest movement is a relatively old and relatively academic movement. The average age is 47 years; 31 percent have a high school diploma, 34 percent have a degree, the proportion of self-employed is significantly higher than in the general population. In the 2017 federal election , according to the survey, 21 percent voted for the Greens, 17 percent for the Left and 14 percent for the AfD. In the federal election in 2021 , 30 percent of the AfD want to vote. The new movement is characterized by alienation from the institutions of the political system, the established media and the old popular parties, said Nachtwey. "It is a movement that comes more from the left, but goes more strongly to the right, but it is enormously contradictory."
The study identifies anti-Semitic prejudices as typical of the movement ; However, authoritarian thinking, xenophobia or the trivialization of National Socialism are less widespread among supporters of the movement, said Nachtwey. Ecclesiastical or pietistic attitudes (lateral thinking 711 comes from the country of origin of pietism ) played a subordinate role. Rather, a pronounced tendency towards natural romanticism is characteristic: 41 percent of those questioned trusted their “feelings more than institutions and experts”. There is a strong desire to equate so-called conventional medicine and alternative healing methods.
The sociologist Tilman Allert sees a subsequent disobedience here .
Finances from "lateral thinking-711"
The MDR spoke of “maximum intransparency” of the finances of the initiative “lateral thinking-711”, the money of which goes through Michael Ballweg's private account. The MDR also emphasized that such activities are covered by private autonomy and that private individuals are not subject to any transparency obligation. The journalist Daniel Laufer emphasized that in addition to the donations, income also comes from merchandising. The journalist also criticized the lack of democratic structures: Ballweg used trademark rights registered with the DPMA to “get his way” within the movement, and in response the latter merely stated that the local groups were self-governing and could freely decide within the framework of the initiative's “manifesto” . The ZDF and netzpolitik.org accuse the founder Michael Ballweg of enriching himself personally through donations and merchandise sales, while local initiatives of the movement missed out. In December 2020 Ballweg received the Golden Coroni award from the satirical television program ZDF Magazin Royale .
Observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution
On December 9th, 2020 it was announced that the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Baden-Württemberg classified "lateral thinking 711" as an object of observation . Bavaria and Hamburg followed suit in 2021 and are monitoring the groups. In an interview with the FAZ , the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang , said that right-wing extremists and Reich citizens were also present at lateral thinking rallies; a federal-state working group is in the process of considering "the relevance of conspiracy theories for the protection of the constitution and also the protest movement against the corona measures".
Attacks on journalists / consequences for freedom of the press in Germany
The Saxon chairman of the German Association of Journalists (DJV) Ine Dippmann said that with the emergence of the “lateral thinking” demonstrations, “what we have experienced in recent years on the fringes of Pegida rallies continues: hostility to the press, that of insults from threats to physical attacks ”.
"The majority of physical and verbal attacks on journalists occurred" in 2020, according to the NGO Reporters Without Borders, "on or on the sidelines of demonstrations against corona measures". Due to the many attacks on corona demonstrations, the organization has therefore downgraded Germany for the first time in its press freedom ranking from “good” to only “satisfactory”.
See also
Web links
- Corona demonstrations: positions and protagonists . Deutschlandfunk, May 18, 2020
- "The self-confidence of the demonstrators is growing" Dieter Rucht in Jetzt.de , November 12, 2020
- The lousy hit rate of the conspiracy ideologist Jan Leber in Der Tagesspiegel , January 15, 2021
Individual evidence
- ↑ William Callison, Quinn Slobodian: Unconventional thinkers: The uprising of the middle class. Zeit Online, April 3, 2021, accessed April 10, 2021 .
- ↑ Corona demos and counter-protest ; FAZ.net of May 22, 2020; accessed on May 31, 2020.
- ^ Conspiracy ideologist Anselm Lenz. The perfect alibi. In: taz . April 3, 2021, accessed April 4, 2021 .
- ↑ a b Julius Betschka: Left counter-protest against the “hygiene demonstration” in Berlin. In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 24, 2020, accessed April 30, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Julius Betschka, Christoph Kluge: That is behind the cross-front demonstration in Berlin. In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 18, 2020, accessed April 19, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Erik Peter: Corona and conspiracy theorists: With the Basic Law against the mind. taz, March 31, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d Erik Peter: Heads of the Corona relativizers: Alu with civil rights facade. taz, May 7, 2020.
- ↑ a b Violations of the Infection Protection Act - daily review of the police control measures. In: berlin.de. March 14, 2020, accessed March 31, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Protest against the ban on gatherings - police dissolve unannounced demo in Berlin-Mitte , rbb24 from April 11, 2020
- ↑ Over 100 arrests at a Berlin demonstration against Corona measures. In: Welt.de. April 26, 2020, accessed April 27, 2020 .
- ↑ Thousands of people move close together through Kreuzberg. In: rbb24.de. May 2, 2020, accessed May 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Again hundreds of participants in the “Hygiene Demo”. In: rbb24.de. May 2, 2020, accessed May 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Police break up unauthorized demonstration in Mitte. In: rbb24.de. April 19, 2020, accessed April 20, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Erik Peter: Corona conspirators demonstrate: Brown chain of infection. In: taz.de . April 12, 2020, accessed April 13, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Corona protests in front of the Volksbühne: AfD “wing” is involved in “hygiene demos”. rbb, May 5, 2020.
- ↑ Ruth Herzberg: Please stay sick! In: Friday . April 27, 2020, accessed April 28, 2020 .
- ↑ Robert Kiesel: Will Berlin become the center of right-wing corona protests? In: Der Tagesspiegel. April 26, 2020, accessed April 28, 2020 .
- ↑ Andrej Reisin, Martin Schneider: “Hygiene Demo” in Berlin: Jews supposedly to blame for Corona. NDR, May 6, 2020.
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- ↑ a b Thousands at demos against corona rules. In: tagesschau.de . May 9, 2020, accessed May 9, 2020 .
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- ^ Rüdiger Soldt: Protest in Berlin: The organizational structure behind the "hygiene demos" . FAZ August 4, 2020, accessed on August 4, 2020.
- ↑ The traveling circus of the Corona deniers comes to town . rbb.de from July 31 , 2020, accessed on August 26, 2020
- ↑ a b Corona protests in Berlin: tightly packed against “virocrats” . taz from August 2, 2020, accessed on August 2, 2020.
- ↑ Julius Betschka: Police corrected numbers upwards: There were 30,000 people at the first Corona demo in Berlin. In: tagesspiegel.de . August 28, 2020, accessed September 2, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Incorrect information about the size of the Berlin Corona demo ; rbb of August 3, 2020; accessed on August 3, 2020
- ↑ #Faktenfuchs: How many people were on the Corona demo in Berlin? August 3, 2020, accessed on August 13, 2020 .
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- ↑ tagesschau.de: Corona demo in Berlin: Fake news about the number of participants. Retrieved August 13, 2020 .
- ↑ Christian Jakob and Jonas Wahmkow: Reich Party Rally for the Virus. In: taz of August 3, 2020, p. 4 f.
- ↑ Anti-Corona demo: ver.di draws a negative balance. In: dju.verdi.de. August 3, 2020, accessed on August 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Demo against Corona rules: Dunja Hayali cancels shooting . Berliner Morgenpost dated August 2, 2020, accessed on August 3, 2020.
- ↑ CDU politician defends Vaatz 'police criticism , Welt.de, August 8, 2020.
- ↑ Focus Online: Top man of the Union faction shocked with crude conspiracy theories , August 7, 2020.
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- ↑ CDU politician defends Arnold Vaatz , Zeit Online, August 8, 2020.
- ↑ Tagesspiegel: Arnold Vaatz's flirtation with the corona deniers , from August 6, 2020
- ↑ 18 police officers injured during protests in Berlin zeit.de from August 2, 2020, accessed on August 22, 2020.
- ↑ 45 police officers injured during demonstrations in Berlin berlin.de from August 2, 2020, accessed on August 25, 2020.
- ↑ a b Several rallies and demonstrations in Mitte berlin.de on August 30, 2020, accessed on September 16, 2020
- ↑ a b Felix Hackenbruch, Julius Betschka, Julius Geiler: Berlin prohibits corona demos - threats against the police www.tagesspiegel.de, August 26, 2020.
- ↑ a b Julius Betschka: This is how the extreme right wants to subvert the Corona protest www.tagesspiegel.de, August 25, 2020.
- ↑ Assembly against Corona policy permitted subject to conditions (No. 42/2020). Press release. Administrative Court Berlin, August 28, 2020, accessed on August 28, 2020 .
- ↑ Court overturns ban on demonstrations against corona policy . rbb24.de from August 28, 2020, accessed on August 28, 2020.
- ↑ Rallies in Berlin may take place . tagesschau.de from August 29, 2020, accessed on August 29, 2020.
- ↑ Sabine am Orde: Calling yes, demonstrating no taz.de, August 24, 2020
- ↑ Diana Pieper, Annelie Naumann: Alternative demos registered - if necessary with gun violence www.welt.de, August 27, 2020.
- ↑ Police dissolve corona demo in Berlin , Spiegel Online, August 29, 2020.
- ↑ DER SPIEGEL: Protests against Corona policy: tens of thousands of people at the rally at the Victory Column - spiegel.de. Retrieved August 29, 2020 .
- ↑ Thomas Fischer , former judge at the Federal Court of Justice: Comment (spiegel.de)
- ↑ Anti-Corona demo much larger than expected , n-tv.de, August 29, 2020.
- ↑ a b c Konrad Litschko: Protest against corona measures in Berlin: Absurd side by side taz.de, August 29, 2020.
- ↑ Maximilian Rieger: Athletes during protests against corona measures - prominent advertising media for conspiracy myths. In: deutschandfunk.de. August 30, 2020, accessed September 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Sophia Garbe, Muriel Kalisch: lateral thinking movement: Radicals tolerated www.zeit.de, September 8, 2020.
- ↑ Felix Bohr: The Bible and the Mask , Der Spiegel No. 43, October 17, 2020, p. 44 f.
- ^ Matthias Kamann, Annelie Naumann: Demonstrating with right-wing extremists? The AfD only regrets one thing www.welt.de, August 31, 2020.
- ↑ Worries came true: Corona demo with “Storming the Reichstag” . rnd.de from August 29, 2020, accessed on August 30, 2020.
- ↑ Hildmann arrested at the Reichsbürger demonstration in Berlin. In: rbb24 . August 29, 2020, accessed August 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Attila Hildmann was released after arrest. In: Stern.de . August 30, 2020, accessed August 30, 2020 .
- ^ Johann Osel: Authorities check the appearances of police officers at the Berlin demo www.sueddeutsche.de, August 30, 2020.
- ↑ Frederik Schindler: When police officers speak of "enslavement" through masks www.welt.de, September 1, 2020.
- ↑ Sebastian Leber, Julius Geiler: Unconventional thinkers complain about "occupation law": Next they want to abolish the Basic Law www.tagesspiegel.de, September 1, 2020.
- ↑ Almost 40,000 people at Corona demos - locks on the Reichstag broken. In: rbb24 . August 29, 2020, accessed August 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Felix Hackenbruch: Plötzensee lido gets shit storm after the “Volkslehrer” is kicked out. In: Der Tagesspiegel . September 4, 2020, accessed September 6, 2020 .
- ↑ Protection of the Constitution: The occupation of the Reichstag came as a surprise. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . Retrieved September 9, 2020 .
- ↑ Escalation at the Reichstag: the police apparently arrested a man with a revolver. In: RND.de, August 31, 2020.
- ↑ Nicholas Potter: Framing the "Reichstag Storm" between glorification and belittlement. In: Belltower , September 3, 2020.
- ↑ Julius Geiler: This is the woman who called to storm the Reichstag www.tagesspiegel.de, September 1, 2020.
- ^ "Attack on the heart of our democracy". Escalation at the Reichstag. In: tagesschau.de . August 30, 2020, accessed August 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Federal President appreciates the police officers' “exemplary behavior”. In: The time . August 31, 2020, accessed September 6, 2020 .
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- ↑ Jette Wieser, Julius Geiler, Jana Weiss: No masks, no distance: the demo against Corona measures in Berlin was so chaotic www.tagesspiegel.de, October 26, 2020.
- ↑ Ministry of the Interior forbids rallies in front of the Bundestag. In: Der Spiegel . November 17, 2020, accessed November 19, 2020 .
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- ↑ Police balance sheet: Almost 80 officers injured in a corona demo. In: Berliner Morgenpost . November 19, 2020, accessed November 19, 2020 .
- ↑ AfD member of the Bundestag, Hilse, defeated by the police during protests against Corona measures. In: Deutschlandfunk . November 18, 2020, accessed November 21, 2020 .
- ↑ 365 arrests, ten injured police officers - Berlin corona demo only ended after hours www.welt.de, November 18, 2020.
- ↑ Bundestag examines legal steps against AfD. In: tagesschau.de . November 20, 2020, accessed November 21, 2020 .
- ↑ Konrad Litschko, Sabine am Orde: “An absolute breaking taboo” taz.de, November 19, 2020
- ↑ Also insulted SPD politician Martin Schulz in the Bundestag. In: Der Spiegel . November 20, 2020, accessed November 20, 2020 .
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- ↑ These are the troublemakers who insulted Altmaier and stormed offices. Retrieved November 21, 2020 .
- ^ "Attack on the Free Mandate". In: Der Spiegel . November 20, 2020, accessed November 20, 2020 .
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- ↑ VG Bremen, decision of December 2, 2020 - 5 V 2748/20 .
- ↑ OVG Bremen, decision of December 4, 2020 - 1 B 385/20 .
- ↑ BVerfG, decision of December 5, 2020 - 1 BvQ 145/20.
- ↑ Nordwest-Zeitung: Balance of the large-scale operation in Bremen :. Retrieved December 6, 2020 .
- ↑ Federal Constitutional Court forbids “lateral thinking” demonstration in Bremen. Retrieved December 6, 2020 .
- ↑ Mäurer calls the Bremen police operation against "lateral thinkers" demo "madness" - buten un inside. Retrieved December 6, 2020 .
- ↑ How the critics of the Corona policy talk themselves into a rage. Rundblick, May 3, 2020
- ↑ Opponents of the Corona restrictions demonstrate at the Maschsee. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung . May 3, 2020, accessed May 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Ten thousand at Corona protest in Munich www.dw.com, September 12, 2020.
- ↑ Peter Burghardt: "Yes, hello, I'm Jana from Kassel". In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . November 22, 2020, accessed November 25, 2020 .
- ↑ "Crude trivializations of the Holocaust". In: tagesschau.de . November 24, 2020, accessed November 25, 2020 .
- ↑ Corinna Emundts: "There are counter-communities to politics". Interview with Matthias Quent . In: tagesschau.de . November 24, 2020, accessed November 25, 2020 .
- ^ "Unconventional thinkers" should beware of Holocaust comparisons. In: spiegel.de . November 24, 2020, accessed November 25, 2020 .
- ↑ Jan-Frederik Wendt, Nicole Schippers, Alina Schröder: After the “lateral thinker” scandal: Twitter users rail against “Jana from Kassel” - “How sick and stupid”. In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine . November 25, 2020, accessed November 25, 2020 .
- ^ Ines Alberti: Jana from Kassel: “I feel like Sophie Scholl” - comparison provokes outrage. In: thecanadian.news. November 23, 2020, accessed on November 25, 2020 (English, supplemented German-language version of the Frankfurter Rundschau ).
- ↑ Melissa Eddy: Video of a young German comparing her fight against coronavirus measures to Nazi resistance sparks outrage. In: The New York Times . November 2020, accessed on November 25, 2020 .
- ↑ Thousands of people, no distance: Corona demos are getting out of hand. In: BR.de. May 10, 2020, accessed May 1, 2020 .
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- ↑ Around 10,000 people at Corona demonstration - police step in www.welt.de, September 12, 2020
- ↑ Several arrests during a demonstration against corona measures www.sueddeutsche.de, September 13, 2020.
- ↑ Christina Hertel: Research shows: 40 right-wing extremists spotted on “lateral thinkers” demos in Munich www.abendzeitung.de, January 9, 2021
- ↑ Felix Balandat, Nikolai Schreiter, Annette Seidel-Arpacı: “The search for the 'guilty'. Anti-Semitism as a central ideological element in the corona protests. ”In: Heike Kleffner , Matthias Meisner (Ed.): Missing minimum distance. The corona crisis and the networks of democracy enemies. Herder, Freiburg 2021, p. 107
- ↑ Martin Bernstein: Sleet on Sunday evening caught corona skeptics cold www.sueddeutsche.de, February 7, 2021
- ↑ a b c Julius Geiler: Twelve police officers injured in Dresden - politicians demand consequences www.tagesspiegel.de, March 14, 2021
- ↑ 2000 anti-vaccination opponents demonstrate in Nuremberg without a minimum distance - and demonstratively embrace. In: Nordbayern.de . May 9, 2020, accessed May 11, 2020 .
- ↑ Corona demo is getting out of hand: Nuremberg's mayor is now speaking. In: Nordbayern.de . May 11, 2020, accessed May 11, 2020 .
- ↑ After demos against corona rules: Bavaria wants to act tougher. BR, May 11, 2020.
- ^ Peaceful protests against Corona measures in Nuremberg. In: BR. May 17, 2020, accessed January 14, 2021 .
- ↑ Despite the rush: Corona demos in Nuremberg are peaceful. In: nordbayern.de . May 17, 2020, accessed January 14, 2021 .
- ↑ a b Thousands demonstrate in Stuttgart against restrictions. In: Zeit Online . May 2, 2020, accessed May 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Ceb: coronavirus in Stuttgart. Police stop demonstration against corona rules. Article from April 13, 2020, website of the Stuttgarter Zeitung , accessed on December 25, 2020.
- ↑ Demonstration despite Corona in Stuttgart - court overturns ban. In: SWR Aktuell . April 18, 2020, accessed May 2, 2020 .
- ^ Mathias Bury: Protest against corona restrictions in Stuttgart. "Stricter requirements" for demo. Article from April 26, 2020, website of the Stuttgarter Zeitung , accessed on December 25, 2020.
- ^ Daniel Laufer: The busy Mr Ballweg In: Netzpolitik.org , December 18, 2020, accessed on December 23, 2020.
- ↑ Demo against Corona restrictions in Stuttgart. In: SWR Aktuell . May 2, 2020, accessed May 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Kira Ayyadi: Querfront in Stuttgart: Initiator of “lateral thinking” demo spreads conspiracy theories and NS-relativization. Belltower.News , May 7, 2020.
- ↑ Thousands on the streets, fire letter to Merkel: There is rumbling in Germany. In: Focus Online . May 3, 2020, accessed May 3, 2020 .
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- ↑ Matthias Quent, Christoph Richter: “Against the mainstream. East and West united in protest. ”In: Heike Kleffner, Matthias Meisner (Ed.): Missing minimum distance. The corona crisis and the networks of democracy enemies. Herder, Freiburg 2021, p. 292 ff.
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