Berlin: Thousands march in COVID-19 pandemic skeptic protest

Several thousand people on Saturday joined a street demonstration and rally in Berlin organized by Germany's "Lateral Thinking" protest movement.

The protest faction, best known for staging demonstrations against COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, was calling for a reassessment of government measures and "consequences for those responsible."

However, a large contingent also protested against the German government's push to rebuild the country's military.

How the protests unfolded

The demonstration moved along the German capital's famous Kurfürstendamm shopping street toward Berlin-Tiergarten.

There, a stage had been set up for a  "freedom, peace, joy" rally organized by the movement's initiator Michael Ballweg.

Many participants in the march protested against the policies of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left-led coalition government.

Some carried placards for the fringe political party The Basis, which is seen as aligned with the Lateral Thinking movement.

Among the statements on display was "Peace-ready, not war-ready," a reference to the statement by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that Germany must be prepared for conflict with Russia by 2029.

According to the Berlin police in the late afternoon, the demonstration and rally had been peaceful and without incident, there were no arrests.

However, there were several violations of the requirement not to display posters referring to the magazine "Compact," which Germany's domestic intelligence service had classified as right-wing extremist and which was subsequently banned.

A preliminary estimate by police put the crowd at the demonstration at around 9,000 people.

Berlin police deployed 500 officers to monitor both the demonstration and several planned counter-demonstrations.

What is the Lateral Thinking movement?

The movement began in Stuttgart and eventually spread across Germany during the coronavirus pandemic.

Supporters repeatedly protested against lockdown measures and vaccine requirements as measures to contain the virus.

An estimated 20,000 people joined a demonstration against the coronavirus measures in Berlin in August 2020, although organizers claimed that the actual crowd was much larger.

Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in 2021 said it would keep parts of the anti-coronavirus lockdown movement under observation.

While the protests became smaller after that, incidents of violence became more frequent. There was increasing concern that the rallies were being used as a platform for far-right and extremist views.

Protesters were noted to have increasingly embraced conspiracy theories, most notably those floated by the QAnon movement which originated in the United States.

This article was written using material from the DPA news agency.

Edited by: Sean Sinico