Germany witnessed scenes on Wednesday that are typically seen only in military dictatorships and fascist regimes. Heavily armed police units took action nationwide against the climate change protest group “Last Generation,” storming the homes of leading members. In addition, the group’s website was blocked and the members’ accounts were frozen.
These actions must be taken as a warning by working people in every country. As the capitalist ruling classes escalate their war plans, they work systematically to abrogate fundamental democratic rights and create the basis for police-state rule.
According to the authorities, raids were carried out on a total of 15 buildings located in seven federal states. The actions recalled the darkest period in German history. Carla Hinrichs, a spokeswoman and co-founder of the Climate Alliance, described the storming of her apartment in a tweet:
It was like a scene from a movie. Suddenly you wake up because your door is thundering. You wake up because “police” are screaming and suddenly a policeman with a bulletproof vest stands in front of your bed and points a gun at you. Then they search everything and take everything that actually belongs to your everyday life. That’s scary.
The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party of Germany strongly condemn the police terror against the climate change activists. It is directed not only against the Last Generation but aimed at the suppression of any social and political opposition. Peaceful protest, civil disobedience, strikes and ultimately any form of opposition are to be intimidated and criminalized.
The raids on Wednesday took place on the basis of Paragraph 129 of Germany’s Criminal Code, which prohibits the “formation of criminal associations.”
This has extremely far-reaching consequences. The Last Generation activists protest peacefully and explicitly reject violence. They draw attention to their concerns, often by means of traffic blockades.
Paragraph 129 goes back to the Reich Criminal Code of the German Empire, dating from 1871. It was for the most part applied historically against leftists and communists, sanctioning massive penalties for members of a “criminal association.”
“A person who establishes an association or participates in an association as a member whose purpose or activity is aimed at the commission of criminal offenses shall be punished by imprisonment for up to five years or by a fine,” it states. “Whoever supports such an association or recruits members or supporters for it” is also subject to be punished with “imprisonment for up to three years or a fine.”
Prison sentences have already been imposed on climate change activists in recent weeks. On March 6, two members of the Last Generation were sentenced by the Heilbronn District Court to imprisonment for two to three months without parole for participating in a road blockade. At the end of April, a climate change activist was sentenced by the District Court of Berlin to four months in prison without parole. This repression is now being massively expanded.
Although a court decision has not yet been handed down, the Munich Prosecutor General’s Office, which initiated the raids, declared the Last Generation to be a “criminal association.” Anyone who visited the website of the climate change protest group on Wednesday received the following message:
The homepage of the “Last Generation” was confiscated by the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office on behalf of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Munich—Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET). The Last Generation represents a criminal association according to § 129 StGB (Criminal Code). Attention: Donations to the Last Generation are therefore punishable support of a criminal association!
This militarist posture is not simply the policy of the right-wing Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) government but is supported by all state governments as well as the federal government.
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (Social Democratic Party) told the newspapers of the Essen-based Funke media group that the measures taken against Last Generation showed the “rule of law” was not to be trifled with.
“The police and the judiciary do not tolerate crimes, but act—as it is their duty to do,” she said. Legitimate protest, she continued, ends where crimes are committed and others’ rights are violated, adding, “If this red line is crossed, then the police must act.”
The new Berlin justice Senator Felor Badenberg, who likewise classified Last Generation as a criminal association, even linked the climate change activists to terrorism. “Whether the Last Generation has to go underground or something else is a decision that the Last Generation has to make for itself,” she said in an interview with public broadcaster ARD’s “Tagesthemen” program.
Badenberg’s appearance underscores the far-right agenda the ruling class is pursuing and the reactionary goals it serves. Badenberg was most recently vice president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.
Between 2013 and 2018, she worked closely with Hans-Georg Maassen, the far-right president of the Verfassungsschutz, and was, according to Wikipedia, “responsible for the office’s contacts with the German Bundestag (parliament) and the federal government, as well as for the president’s speeches and lectures.”
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