And then they go. You announced this beforehand, on the Internet and in choirs during the meeting in front of the Ludwigskirche. At first the police can stop her, then they just run after them. A hard core of up to 1000 demonstrators marched through the city center on Wednesday evening without registering.
Almost 4,000 people had previously demonstrated “against compulsory vaccination and compulsory vaccination”, according to their own admission, “good protest”, as organizer Melchior Ibing mockingly explains, no resistance yet. Of course, he threatens that if the vaccination becomes mandatory (he does not say that it is decided by democratically elected MPs), the authorities will be paralyzed.
Now many people want to demonstrate how they respect conditions and the right of assembly: only as far as it suits them – not at all. In the run-up to the experience from last week, the city decreed: FFP2 mask compulsory and no demonstration march. The marchers hardly care. Some wave a rainbow flag and a “peace” symbol and chant chants against the “dictatorship” that they see at work in Germany.
The others, even louder, run at a run across busy streets and intersections, waving an upside-down German flag, a symbol of the Reich citizen. The police, initially with 200 officers, have now doubled their staff and yet can hardly keep up. To be on the safe side, she had already filled some critical points beforehand.
Only on Sendlinger Strasse can the police encircle 80 demonstrators. Register a new congregation? The protesters are not interested in that. At 9 p.m. the last ones go home with the rolled up flags under their arms. Your ringleader is displayed.
In an initial assessment well after midnight, the police speak of 28 arrests, mainly for assault and insult. There are 18 reports against notorious mask refusers, although during the one and a half hour meeting on Ludwigstrasse almost every second person takes off their mask or has it dangling somewhere on their chin.
Folders that the organizer would have to provide can hardly be seen. A man with a yellow star on his jacket is being led away who equates restrictions on unvaccinated persons with the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich. There is also a report of a violent attack by right-wing fraternities on a journalist. The state security is investigating because of a Hitler salute. Police officers had to use direct physical force 36 times in the course of the evening in order to master the situation.
The city will take action against anti-democratic activities
The next day, Munich’s Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter appealed to Munich residents “to get vaccinated and not to take part in such gatherings”. If violence is exercised, infection protection requirements are grossly disregarded and referred to as “dictatorial measures” and the Holocaust is played down, if plans for attacks on politicians, journalists and scientists are forged in Telegram groups, then according to Reiter, “it is unbearable and crosses the border legitimate criticism of corona measures by far “. The SPD politician announced that the city would take decisive action against all anti-democratic activities by corona deniers.
About twice as many people as a week ago answered the call from “Munich stands up”. The police say, probably realistically, of a maximum of 3,700 participants, the organizers claim to have counted 10,000 followers, some participants in their euphoria even up to 50,000 people – on around 10,000 square meters of available, barred assembly area. “Vaccination makes you free” is written on a poster. You can read about the “War on Corona Terror and the Pandemic of the Hypnotized”.
The debates were heated in advance. Should you put up with the city’s requirements or just go ahead? The applicant has called on the participants to hold a “masked ball”: “If you are too desperate, too angry to take part, it might be better not to go.”
For him, this is clearly a question of the right tactics: “This is about low-threshold protest that as many as possible can join,” writes Ibing on his Telegram channel. “The Wednesday parade is only part of the protest and protest is only part of the resistance.”
As long as “the chives” give calm, writes a user about the Munich police before the rally, they will do that too. “But as soon as there is an imminent danger and they attack you for no reason, it is over and an attack takes place.” You don’t want to cause any inconvenience to the police, says a speaker. And distances itself from anti-Semitic slogans that can also be read on posters that evening. The next day the police reported: The applicant did not have the rally under control.
Those who go to Ludwigstrasse in Munich on Wednesday evening are cheering themselves for a “civil rights movement the likes of which the world has never seen”. They also cheer when the speaker Ralph T. Niemeyer commemorates his former comrade-in-arms, the late pandemic denier and conspiracy ideologist Karl Hilz, and calls for a solidarity between right and left. They cheer especially loudly when the demonstrations in Vienna are mentioned – demonstrations that the right-wing FPÖ has called for and at which right-wing extremists openly appear. And they cheer when Ibing announces resistance to the government because they are selling basic rights “to the oligarchy”. When he calls out to the crowd: “Do you want to give up?” He echoes a “No!” back.
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