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Chaos in the center of Leipzig: foreseeable escalation
Photo: FILIP SINGER / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
The plot is so simple, so well-known: a demo in Leipzig, countless right-wing extremists and conspiracy believers arrive, in the end there are dozens of crimes and arrests, attacks on journalists and officials, massive property damage.
Typically Saxony, typically extremists, typically police?
Not at all.
It wasn't just Saxons in Leipzig.
The "lateral thinking" rally with well over 20,000 demonstrators was preceded by an unprecedented mobilization: thousands of people from all over the republic came to Leipzig in trains, cars and buses.
It was then possible to observe what anger potential the government's corona protective measures had activated in a minority - everywhere in the country.
It wasn't just right-wing extremists and anti-fascist groups who were prepared to be violent.
On that day, people sang, shouted, meditated, danced and laughed in downtown Leipzig.
Families had come, students, senior citizens.
The peaceful "lateral thinking" participants are not responsible for the violence of the others.
At the same time, it was already clear in advance that extremists would also come - extremists from whom the "lateral thinkers" did not distance themselves.
It was not the police that triggered the escalation with their intervention.
The Saxon officials had received support from eight federal states and had an early idea of the potential for violence - but were then obviously simply overwhelmed.
Police chief Torsten Schultze later admitted that a conscious decision was made in favor of a strategy of restraint.
So the matter is complicated: In Leipzig city center, the "lateral thinking" demonstrators did not even try to adhere to the city requirements: Hardly anyone kept the prescribed minimum distances, according to the police, 90 percent of people did not wear a protective mask.
In the middle of the pandemic, thousands of egoists organized a potential superspreading event of the XXL category - and apparently were not bothered by the support from anti-Semites, neo-Nazis and other misanthropists.
That alone must make you stunned, but the escalation after the demo was canceled cannot be attributed to the self-proclaimed "lateral thinkers" alone.
At the same time, it is more than questionable whether a massive police operation, for example with water cannons, would have calmed the situation.
However, the authorities must of course ask themselves whether such a passive deployment strategy was the right approach in the face of thousands of people, some of whom were prone to violence, in the middle of the pandemic.
The escalation can therefore be traced back to a number of actors in a confusing situation.
But the main people responsible for the fact that it could come to this point were most likely not in Leipzig on that day: It was the Saxon Higher Administrative Court in Bautzen that made the chaos day in Leipzig possible with an extremely strange decision.
Because the city administration had recognized in time that 20,000 people on Augustusplatz would never have been able to keep a distance of 1.50 meters from one another and moved the large demo to a parking lot at the New Fair.
Tens of thousands of people could have demonstrated there in compliance with the hygiene measures, the total of 27 registered rallies would have been straightened out, there would have been no such chaotic crowd in the city center.
The Bautzen judges decided differently - for whatever reason: They have not yet published a reason for their decision, it will be submitted in the coming days.
Hopefully the lawyers use the time to calmly reflect on the chaos of this weekend.
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