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A demonstration on a "lateral thinking" demonstration in Bremen
Photo: Sina Schuldt / dpa
The proposal for the state party conference of the Bremen Left read like a table of common conspiracy myths.
The coronavirus death rate is in the "order of magnitude of influenza," it says.
The prescribed protective measures are "unnecessary", the federal government acts without "scientific evidence".
The mRNA vaccines are also anything but safe, allegedly "numerous deaths and serious side effects have already been documented."
None of this is true.
Covid-19 is proven to be more deadly than the flu, mRNA vaccines have been extensively tested and are considered safe.
Nevertheless, a group of local politicians from the Bremen Left Party wanted a change of direction in corona policy.
"Dare to restart the debate based on evidence," was the name of the motion, which was actually far from any evidence.
The request was rejected by a large majority at the digital state party congress at the weekend - but the conflict in the Bremen Left is not entirely out of the world.
Left shoulder closings with right wingers
For a long time, several members of the Bremen Left have been on the scene of the conspiracy myths.
But it was not until the party congress that the conflict emerged openly.
A study by sociologist Oliver Nachtwey from the University of Basel suggests that among "lateral thinking" supporters, the proportion of voters from the Greens and the Left Party is extremely high - higher than the proportion of those who lean towards the AfD.
Nachtwey had evaluated more than a thousand questionnaires that he had sent out to members of "Querdenker" Telegram groups.
According to our survey, 21 percent voted for the Greens and 17 percent for the Left in the last federal election.
The AfD gave 14 percent their vote, «said Nachtwey.
"But now 30 percent of the AfD want to vote in the next federal election."
The data are not representative, the sociologist speaks of a descriptive statistical analysis.
Nachtwey describes "lateral thinking" on "Deutschlandfunk" as a movement "that partly comes from the left, but rather goes to the right."
Organized bus tours to the Berlin “lateral thinking” demo
Nachtwey's survey fits at least with the Bremen “lateral thinking” offshoot.
Gabriele Schmidt, member of the Left Advisory Council in the Bremen district of Schwachhausen, is jointly responsible for the group.
The business economist is also one of the co-organizers of the local "lateral thinking" demos, and speaks there on stage.
Together with other state leftists, she founded the party-internal working group "Left Corona Policy", she is also responsible for the application at the state party conference.
Schmidt did not respond to a request from SPIEGEL.
Last summer, Schmidt organized a coach that drove people from Bremen to the big “lateral thinking” demonstration in Berlin, in which participants stormed the stairs in front of the Reichstag building.
Schmidt called via Telegram to contact her by e-mail for the bus trip - she also uses the same e-mail address for her political work in the district association of the Bremen Left Party.
The left-wing politician writes on Facebook that the "system press" keeps the number of participants in "lateral thinking" demos small, "powerful economic and financial cliques" use the pandemic to "rebuild" society.
These are statements that can be read in one way or another on conspiracy blogs and the Telegram channels of relevant "lateral thinking" actors.
At the beginning of the pandemic, "lateral thinking" was started as a group that was as broadly positioned as possible against the government's corona measures. Self-employed people demonstrated side by side with "Reich citizens", esotericists and supporters of conspiracy myths.
In the meantime, the rallies are almost exclusively dominated by radical forces, and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is watching individual groups, for example in Hamburg.
The authorities attribute several important actors to the milieu of the "Reichsbürger" and so-called self-administrators who deny the existence of the Federal Republic and deny democratic and constitutional structures.
"Do you just want to provoke or do you live in a parallel universe?"
How does the left in Bremen deal with the "lateral thinking" sympathizers?
The state chairman Christoph Spehr sees no reason to exclude Schmidt from the party.
"The 'lateral thinking' events in Bremen cannot be compared in terms of their coloring with those in Berlin or Stuttgart," Spehr told SPIEGEL.
Accordingly, he does not see Schmidt closing ranks with right-wing extremists.
Exclusion from the party is also not easy to achieve.
"Everyone knows each other in Bremen," says Spehr, "it's better if we keep talking to one another."
However, the state party conference was not quite as relaxed after all.
One speaker asked the comrades around Schmidt frankly: "Do you just want to provoke or do you live in a parallel universe?" Another warned of the anti-Semitic tendencies of "lateral thinking".
"We haven't distanced ourselves for too long," she says, now is the time.
In fact, the left finds it difficult to criticize the corona measures.
Left-wing parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch described the lack of ideas of the latest resolutions as a »Because-the-federal-government-messed-up-lockdown«, party leader Janine Wissler warned against too lax rules for employers - after all, corona infections would not end at the company gates .
At the same time, the Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, as a leftist, is responsible for the resolutions.
92 percent rejection
Obvious points of contact between the left and "lateral thinkers" have hardly existed in the left.
In December, a Brandenburg comrade left the party after criticism of her involvement in "lateral thinking" demonstrations on the side of right-wing extremists.
If a Nazi shouts "peace", "democracy" and "freedom", she can live with it, she is said to have answered the Oranienburg comrades.
The Bremen Left is now the first case in which several party members sought proximity to the Corona conspirators.
In order to take a stand against the renegade comrades' Corona push, the state executive finally hastily submitted an alternative proposal at the state party conference.
Motto: "Counter thinking outside the box, also in Bremen!" In it, you distance yourself from people who think outside the box - and demand the dissolution of Schmidt's Corona working group.
In the end, it was accepted with 87 percent approval, while Schmidt's proposal was rejected with 92 percent of the votes.
Your working group has thus been dissolved.
That was important as a signal, says state chairman Spehr.
Schmidt and her comrades would give an "extreme minority opinion" of the Bremen left.
It was important to the party leadership in the state not to let the working group appear as an official instrument of the state association.
A better template for the political opponents would have been difficult to imagine.
But the party is not completely rid of the problem.
There are no indications that the members in question are distancing themselves from the "lateral thinkers".