In East Germany, thousands of people are joining the Monday demonstrations again, evoking a mood like before reunification. However, it is mainly existential fears that drive people onto the streets.
“Sanctions against Russia are the deathblow for Germany and its economy” reads a poster. “Baerbock and Habeck in prison, traitors to the people” can be read on another. On Monday evening in Schwerin, several participants in the demonstration carried German flags with the imprint “We are the people”, in between a man holds up the Russian flag, on the back is emblazoned in Gothic script “Resistance cannot be forbidden”.
According to the organizer, around 2,700 people walked through the streets of Schwerin – the police counted 1,450 – and demonstrated against what they considered to be misguided policies. “Where is this supposed to lead?” is a common theme in the conversations.
First the pandemic, now the rising prices and concerns about energy shortages. The frustration of many people is obviously deep and their existential fears are growing. In the past few weeks, more and more people have taken to the streets, especially in the eastern German states, to demonstrate against government policies. This Monday, the Rostock Police Inspectorate reported a total of 5,100 people for their area of responsibility, which currently includes Schwerin as the largest demonstration site; at the same time, more than 2,700 people took to the streets in the Neubrandenburg area. Some of the responsible actors have been at the corona protests in the previous months and have now changed the subject. Corresponding Telegram channels also advertise these dates; some are credited with connections to the right-wing scene.
While the price increases and a feared energy shortage are being denounced on the street, there is a smorgasbord of demands on the website of the demonstration initiative “Schwerin Schweig nicht”. A wide variety of concerns come together under the heading “Red for the traffic light government”. It’s a vague mix.
There is pressure for the abolition of the gas levy, which has since been abolished. Reforms in education, the economy and agriculture are also being demanded, the desired focus on “national interests” is alongside the demand that foreign policy should be characterized by “neutrality” in the future. An alleged “power politics” or the “unlimited promotion of the predatory wolf” is also denounced. Criticism of the pandemic policy and the vaccination campaign can also be found on the homepage of the demo organizers.
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Meinhard Stalder is among the people who have responded to this group’s call. He is one of the few people in Schwerin who agrees to being named and photographed. He is involved in the party “Die Basis”, which was founded in the wake of the Corona protests and is close to the lateral thinking movement. “We are being pushed into a downward spiral in society. We are becoming impoverished,” says Stalder on the sidelines of the demonstration. He himself is still doing relatively well. However, he keeps hearing from acquaintances that they “have to do a lot of calculations”.
Above all, he fears “hyperinflation”. And of course from rising energy prices. That is why he calls for the nuclear power plants to be allowed to run longer and for the coal phase-out to be questioned. In terms of foreign policy, the federal government should rely more on diplomacy “and not adopt the war rhetoric of the Americans or NATO” in order to contain the war in Ukraine and not fuel it.
An opinion, not facts. Because the Scholz government is also widely criticized internationally because, for example, when it comes to arms deliveries, it acts more cautiously than the USA, for example. Since the beginning of the war, there have also been repeated talks between Scholz or France’s Macron and Putin, but nothing has come of it. In addition, the support of international partners is considered the main reason why the Ukrainian army was able to push back Putin’s troops over a large area and the country as such still exists.
Stalder is not the only one who is more concerned with a diffuse feeling of powerlessness and fear than with hard facts. “You are so uncertain and have no options,” says one mother about life in the face of the high price increases that her family is clearly feeling. Her central demand: life must remain affordable. The feeling of paternalism, for example when politicians give energy-saving washing tips, annoys the demonstrators.
Demo participant Bernhard Rost is much more affected by the price increases. As a pensioner, he feels it clearly. “The 300 euro one-off payment is peanuts,” he says of the energy allowance for pensioners. In the West, the financial conditions are better for many, which is why the atmosphere there is perhaps not so heated, he suspects: “But here in the East, many people are struggling to survive.”
For a pensioner with a monthly income of 800 to 900 euros, the situation can hardly be coped with. “We can apply for welfare. Worked for 50 years and then received social assistance. That is the thanks of our politicians and our state,” he complains. That’s why he’s now taking to the streets, like in 1989, to demonstrate for a different policy. Sanctions against Russia, on the other hand, would not make Putin give in, he says. Expensively purchased electricity from Poland or France as a replacement also does not remedy the rising energy prices in this country. “That harms us more than Germany,” says Rost. That is why he also speaks out against shutting down nuclear and coal-fired power plants.
Organizer Daniel Gurr also sees a “poorer social situation” in the East and invokes the spirit of the 1989 protests before the Wall came down; people have already taken to the streets for a better future. “We are here because we want energy prices to go down,” he tells his audience. No hunger, no freezing, enough electricity and security for the middle class, Gurr demands very generally. “So we’ll be back,” he announces.
Meanwhile, Gurr uses the stage to present himself as politically neutral and to denounce a polarization between left and right in politics. His criticism is directed against bad government policies that trigger existential fears among the people. He rejects media reports that suggest he is close to right-wing positions or to the party “Die Basis” as misrepresentations and commits himself to the “free democratic basic order”.
NDR, among others, had reported that Gurr had shared a post via Telegram that downplayed the Holocaust. He was also criticized for signing an open letter which said that being excluded during the 2G rule would allow unvaccinated people to put themselves in the position of Jews in the 3rd Reich. He also shared a post on Telegram calling a vaccine bus a “poison center on wheels.”
It is the well-known vocabulary of lateral thinkers. After the Corona demonstrations, she and other actors have now found a new topic to channel people’s fears – especially in East Germany – one could also say to exploit them: the consequences of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
