Status: 26.12.2023, 07:35 a.m.
By: Julian Mayr
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The "Last Generation" has given Leipzig an orange Christmas tree and permanently damaged the tree. The action is met with little understanding.
Leipzig – There can be no talk of peace and contemplation at Christmas time for the last generation. The climate activists always cause a stir with daring actions and they have also come up with a suitable protest action for Christmas. This time, Christmas trees were their destination in several major German cities – including Leipzig.
A video by the group "Last Generation" on X shows two activists spraying a large Christmas tree with orange paint in Leipzig's Mädler-Passage. The spraying action lasted less than thirty seconds. The protest was held under the motto: "Contemplative into disaster? Charity equals climate protection". One of the activists on site told MDR: "During the Christmas season, it is so easy to suppress the fact that we are in a climate catastrophe."
Climate activists smear one-of-a-kind: Christmas tree
The reactions of business owners to the action were anything but positive. Christiane Kübel, a shop owner, vented her anger to Bild: "The emotional damage is huge. We had the tree for ten years and it was to accompany us for another ten years. It's one of a kind, it's hard to get something like that." The tree was also a magnet for visitors. Many people came specifically for the Christmas tree, explains Anke Beesch, manager of the Mädler-Passage, to the Leipziger Volkszeitung. Now, however, it has been destroyed.
The eleven-metre-high Christmas tree is made of plastic and is assembled with great care every year. Uwe Voigt, the head of a building cleaning company, told Bild that cleaning the artificial tree would hardly be feasible: "I'm not very optimistic, the tree has been in use for a few years, so plastic also becomes porous." What will happen to the tree now has not yet been determined.
Angry reactions to spraying: Activists are sympathetic
The action of the "Last Generation" was also not well received by passers-by, as media reports announced. An elderly woman, who said she had already campaigned for climate protection in the GDR, expressed her dissatisfaction to the Leipziger Volkszeitung. She wished that the activists would do educational work on climate change instead of destroying "something beautiful and heartwarming".
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Members of the "Last Generation" sprayed a Christmas tree in Leipzig. There were similar actions in other cities as well. © Jan Woitas/dpa
According to reports, some of the activists were also insulted. According to MDR, a business owner even tried to push two of the demonstrators away from the tree. The activists were sympathetic to the reactions. "The topic is emotionally stirring and so is our protest, so this emotional reaction to our protest is understandable," said Melanie Guttmann, one of the founders of the "Last Generation", in an interview with the Leipziger Zeitung.
In the meantime, the police have started investigations against the three activists for damage to property. Members of the protest movement "Last Generation" are often confronted with arrests and sometimes harsh sentences as a result of controversial actions. It is not uncommon for people affected by the protests to be highly emotional, including this mother.
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