Berlin The Federal Ministry of the Interior, headed by department head Nancy Faeser (SPD), warns of the climate protection movement being monopolized by left-wing extremists. “Actors from the left-wing extremist scene are trying to influence climate protection groups, make them receptive to their goals, radicalize social protest and delegitimize the state and its institutions,” a ministry spokeswoman told Handelsblatt.
The assessment coincides with the observation of constitutional protection officers. “There is a risk that the previously non-extremist environmental and climate movements ‘Fridays for Future’ or ‘Last Generation’ will be infiltrated by left-wing extremists,” said Stephan Kramer, President of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, to the Handelsblatt. The intention behind this is ultimately to exert “significant influence” on the movements. “There are already initial attempts in this direction.”
Against this background, Kramer considers a radicalization of the climate movement to be possible. “It is alarming that in parts of the climate scene there seems to be a lack of hope and hopelessness, which leads to thoughts of the end of the world,” he said.
“Such a lack of prospects makes one vulnerable to the influence of extremists and could promote radicalization.” As a result, the protest actions “could become more and more drastic”. “In this way, even more attention should be generated in order to force politicians and large parts of the population to act.”
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The Greens evaluate the finding differently. Hesse’s Green Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Al-Wazir, for example, sees some radicalization tendencies that worry him. “I’m afraid that the desperation that some are feeling could lead to terrible things,” Al-Wazir told the weekly Die Zeit.
The first parliamentary secretary of the Greens in the Bundestag, Irene Mihalic, finds the warnings too vague. “The assumed lack of prospects is not enough for me to be able to assess that, especially since most movements will find that they are very far from fulfilling their maximum demands,” Mihalic told the Handelsblatt.
“Last Generation” sometimes resorts to more drastic methods of protest
However, if there are concrete indications of radicalization, it must of course be “resolutely” followed up. “The question of the extent to which other extremist groups are trying to stage themselves at the expense of the climate movement and to exploit its organizational power is highly relevant,” added the Greens politician. But that should not be dumped on the climate movement.
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The SPD domestic politician Sebastian Fiedler supports the finding of the Thuringian protection of the constitution. “There are violent left-wing extremists who try to infiltrate parts of the climate movement and use them as a kind of breeding ground for their anti-constitutional efforts,” the member of the Bundestag told the Handelsblatt. “They are trying to radicalize climate protests in the direction of violence.” In doing so, they did the climate movement a disservice.
Blockades like this happen almost every day.
(Photo: dpa)
The so-called “last generation” is already resorting to more drastic methods of protest. The climate protection group, which was founded at the end of 2021, blocked motorway access for the first time on January 24 last year. As a rule, protesters tape themselves to streets or other surfaces to make the evictions long.
Such blockades take place almost every day, as well as protests in museums, stadiums, at oil pipelines or airports. The activists initially called for a “food save law” against food waste. The current demands are 100 km/h on motorways and a permanent nine-euro ticket for public transport.
The deputy head of the FDP parliamentary group, Konstantin Kuhle, warned: “With the sticking on German streets or even the physical attack on police officers around the evacuation of Lützerath, the legitimate basic idea of the climate protection movement is being led further and further into the social sidelines.” The more and more radical ones Forms of protest are also “a breeding ground for left-wing extremist influences on the movement”.
Federal government: Criminal offenses “cannot be considered per se as an indicator of extremism”
In Berlin alone, where there are regular blockades, the police booked around 262,700 hours of action for the protests of the “last generation” by mid-January, according to a police spokeswoman. The group now wants to extend its actions to the whole of Germany.
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Germany’s top constitutional protection officer, Thomas Haldenwang, has so far seen “no sufficiently weighty factual evidence” that the grouping could be an “anti-constitutional endeavor”. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution only comes into play when extremists radicalize or influence the protests, he said recently. Nevertheless, there is a certain danger among the “last generation” that “there are left-wing extremist groups trying to infiltrate this movement”.
The current demands of the group are 100 km/h on motorways and a permanent nine-euro ticket for public transport.
(Photo: dpa)
As part of their protest actions, the “Last Generation” also commits crimes. The blockades at Berlin-Brandenburg and Munich airports in November and December 2022 represented a new level of escalation in the protests, the federal government wrote in a response to a parliamentary question.
According to the answer, however, the commission of criminal offenses “cannot be taken as an indicator of extremism per se”. The decisive factor is whether the criminal offenses are committed from anti-constitutional motivation, “thus whether there are sufficient factual indications of efforts against the free democratic basic order in the above-mentioned sense”.
Office for the protection of the constitution Haldenwang emphasized that climate protection is a legitimate concern. The protest actions of the numerically largest movement “Fridays for Future” “are peaceful and move on the ground of legality”.
In this context, the Minister of the Interior also attached importance to the statement that the climate protection movement “predominantly” consists of non-extremist, democratic initiatives.
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