Is the country facing a "hot autumn" with nationwide protests and violence? The Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Interior Minister Strobl are worried, as are others. But is the mood really comparable to the time of the Corona protests?
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - In view of the energy crisis and high inflation, is Baden-Württemberg threatened with another wave of protests by angry people in autumn? According to the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the atmosphere of crisis could erupt in demonstrations, some of which could be violent. Higher energy prices, but also the consequences of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and another wave of corona could lead to an increasing number of political meetings, said a spokesman for the Baden-Württemberg state office of the dpa.
"It cannot be ruled out that the possible protest events will lead to a violent escalation with extremist participation," he added. Politicians and journalists could also come into focus.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution already has information that right-wing extremists and citizens of the Reich in particular want to exploit or even fan the possible protest events. The scene of the so-called delegitimizers of the state is also currently looking for new topics - this is how the constitutional protection describes a spectrum that became visible in the Corona protests and, according to the authorities, cannot be clearly located on the left or right. It is unclear whether "lateral thinkers" would again play a dominant role in the southwest, as they did during the Corona protests.
Interior Minister Thomas Strobl was also skeptical as to whether any protests in the fall would remain peaceful. "The moment the whole thing turns into general hostility to the state and democracy, it becomes extremely dangerous," warned the CDU politician in an interview with the German Press Agency.
The Constance protest researcher Sebastian Koos sees a difference to the agitated corona mood. The debate about vaccination touched many personally. "But that doesn't mean that they would also allow themselves to be mobilized because of economic disadvantage," Koos told the dpa.
In addition, according to previous experience, it is difficult to mobilize people in precarious life situations. "Most of them just have to make ends meet." Koos still sees a risk: "If politicians don't succeed in getting economic development under control and taking away people's fears, I can imagine that the expected large-scale mobilization attempts could also be successful," he said.
However, Strobl does not rule out an explosive situation: "I do not lack the imagination for such developments," he said. "We have to learn lessons from German history and take countermeasures at an early stage so that left-wing and right-wing extremists don't rule our streets."
He warned that the increasing anti-Semitism in the country could gain more followers due to the mood of crisis. Such crises are always the big field for conspiracy ideologues, said the interior minister. They often worked with anti-Semitic narratives. "This is the classic. A culprit is being sought," said Strobl. "And then, as now, these people unbearably singled out our Jewish fellow citizens as scapegoats."
Among others, Sören Pellmann, the East Commissioner for the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, had called for Monday demonstrations against the gas levy and high energy prices. Since the peaceful revolution in the GDR and the Leipzig Monday demonstrations against the SED, the term has had great symbolic importance. The right is also mobilizing separately from the left against the government's energy policy - and they too sometimes use the slogan of the Monday demonstration.
"Apartments don't get warm because you're heating up panic now," criticized the SPD parliamentary group leader Andreas Stoch. The people, for the most part, behaved very sensibly. "So there is no reason to talk about escalations." The traffic light coalition in the federal government has been trying for weeks and months to prevent scenarios in which people panic. "That's why we're taking precautions now, that's why there are relief packages." But the community of solidarity is now also required, he said.
