The pro-Russian demonstration in Frankfurt began with loud protests. Despite the heated atmosphere, there were initially no incidents.
FRANKFURT – “Chicane, chicane,” the police resounded. And: “Freedom, freedom!” When the officials checked two participants in the demonstration for showing Soviet flags, the already heated atmosphere threatened to tip over. The police announced over the loudspeaker that no demonstrators were under “police violence”: “You can keep running!”
Also read: Today pro-Russian demonstration in Frankfurt
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Around 800 participants, the police estimate, answered the call of a single applicant on Sunday to demonstrate “against hate speech and discrimination against Russian-speaking fellow citizens/against war – for peace”. After an opening rally at the Alte Oper with several speakers – accompanied by loud protests – the procession leads to the main cemetery. In front of its closed doors – the city has closed the area because of a storm warning – flowers are laid “for Russian, German and Ukrainian victims of fascism” during the Second World War, as a speaker explains to pathetic music.
Demo participants attacked with tear gas
A police spokesman said the controls were carried out on the way back because the USSR flag, which was shown several times, was likely to deny Ukraine sovereignty. There is initial suspicion of a criminal offence, as does the shouts of “Donbass belongs to Russia” that Russian-speaking police officers hear from the demonstration crowd.
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A pro-Russian demonstration is taking place in Frankfurt.
(Photo: Sascha Kircher)
Otherwise, according to the police, there are no violations of the requirements of the public order office under which the controversial pro-Russian demonstration had been placed: such as showing the “Z” symbol or the Saint George ribbon. According to the police, the only serious incident occurred when a person from outside attacked demonstrators with tear gas. The police are investigating on suspicion of dangerous bodily harm.
Zelenskyy denigrated as a “pedophile and satanist”.
The atmosphere is emotional right from the start: At the Alte Oper, where the participants gather, including numerous Russian nationalists with Putin shirts or the Tsar flag, representatives of the Rocker group “Nachtwolves”, who are close to Putin, lateral thinkers and opponents of vaccination, but also peace-loving organic Germans, echoes to protest against the speakers, who address the demonstrators in Russian and German. “Putin – war criminal” is shouted, but also “Putin – son of a bitch”. Among other things, “Russia die” can be read on posters. Several dozen police officers separate the two groups. Individual pro-Russian demonstrators discuss the length and material of flagpoles with the police. A participant with a Russian flag explains to a passer-by that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy must die because, like US President Joe Biden, he is a “pedophile and satanist”.
But there are also thoughtful voices among the demonstrators: Sascha from Darmstadt, for example. The 47-year-old came to Frankfurt with several friends to “stand up for the Russian side”. “War sucks, no matter where,” he says with a Russian accent. His 13-year-old daughter, who attends high school, has not yet experienced any discrimination, but being Russian is not accepted. “Why do they always look so closely at us,” asks Sascha. After a brief exchange of words with a counter-demonstrator on the side of the road, who called him a “bullshit”, the police officers urged him to join the demonstration again and not to “provoke”. None of the organizers want to talk to the press, an interview request is answered with “Later!”.
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The police separated the counter-demonstrators from the pro-Russian demonstrators.
(Photo: Sascha Kircher)
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Meanwhile, the students Lisa and Jakob are standing with Ukrainian flags along the route of the demo, which is lined with blue and yellow signs. The two consider the demonstration’s claim to be for peace to be “ridiculous,” says Jakob. And Lisa, who came to Germany from the Ukraine at the age of nine, finds the loud “Russia” chants and the sea of flags of the nation that invaded her home country at the end of February “really bad”. An elderly passer-by comments on these patriotic declarations with a typical Frankfurt slacker: “Oh, then you should just go home.”
Around 2,500 pro-Ukrainian demonstrators are protesting at the same time on the Römerberg and the Roßmarkt. Blue and yellow flags are being waved, and posters in English read, among other things: “Stop Russia”, “No gas from Russia” and “Stop the genocide”.
