Turbulent scenes during Wednesday's protest: Politics calls for more police - CSU outraged by the Greens tweet

Created: 12/23/2021, 7:09 PM

From: Klaus Vick, Leoni Billina

Around 5000 people demonstrated on Wednesday, most of them met on Ludwigstrasse © Oliver Bodmer

On Wednesday, lateral thinkers and opponents of the Corona measures went through Munich again.

Politicians have been shaken up - and the CSU is outraged by a Green MP.

Munich - Chaotic scenes played out on Wednesday in the Maxvorstadt.

Once more.

About 5000 people took to the streets again against the Corona measures, faced with 500 emergency services.

Distances were not kept, very few wore masks, police chains were broken with an attempt.

The result: eleven arrests, 14 charges.

The demo was not registered, the organizers had canceled it in advance because they did not want to bow to the decision of the district administration department (KVR) to move the protest to Theresienwiese.

As a result, they agreed to "go for walks" on social networks.

What happened in the evening, however, was not just a walk *.

The police had to spread over the city area due to the strategy of the "strollers".

“We noticed in advance that there were calls to meet for so-called walks. Several locations in the city were discussed, "says police spokesman Andreas Franken. The police would have distributed their emergency services accordingly, among other things to Theresienwiese, Ludwigstrasse and Marienplatz. “Of course, that means that you can't be equally represented at all locations.” The result: At the originally planned venue, Ludwigstrasse, the “strollers” gathered in their thousands and played a game of cat and mouse with the Police. Franconia: You will now follow up the operation. "We are a learning organization."

Munich's politicians are alarmed by the excesses.

Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) * spoke of an "abuse of the basic right to freedom of expression".

The leaders are no longer just about their protest against the corona measures, they are looking for a conflict with the state.

All security authorities would have to react to this new dimension of so-called walks.

"We need concepts as to how we should proceed with this type of protests in the future." The OB had a conference call with the police headquarters on Thursday.

Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) announced that he had "instructed all police headquarters to massively increase the police presence during appropriate operations".

Corona demo in Munich: Green MPs call for violence - CSU appalled

The deputy leader of the Greens in the city council, Dominik Krause, spoke of a "complete failure" of the police leadership.

He criticized that there were no recognizable tactics.

After what happened a week ago, it was "an escalation with an announcement".

It was disturbing that numerous recognizable violations of the mask requirement were not punished.

The SPD parliamentary group leader in the city council, Anne Hübner, said: “Anyone who marches with lateral thinkers and right-wing extremists has left the spectrum of democratic dialogue.” The Free State must equip the police in such a way “that they are appropriate for attacks against democracy disguised as walks can react ”.

The city's task is to reach unvaccinated people, "who are by no means all lateral thinkers, with our vaccination offers".

The CSU parliamentary group leader, Manuel Pretzl, said: “The police must strategically prevent something like this from happening permanently.” Pretzl, however, forbade a general criticism of the police: “In earlier times we had to endure such spontaneous demos from the left, too. “In this context, the CSU politician was furious about a Twitter post by the Munich Green Party member Saskia Weishaupt *. The latter had declared that lateral thinkers should not be allowed to walk. The police must act, in case of doubt use pepper spray and batons. In Pretzl's opinion an “unspeakable attitude”. The Greens in particular have criticized the police at every opportunity in the past.

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