Tuesday, Oct. 3, saw the second day of mass protests in Germany, where a wide array of parties and activists joined forces and called for the resignation of the incumbent federal government.
The day before, a similar protest was staged in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, including largely middle-aged and elderly people from across the political spectrum.
The Lustgarten, a two-hectare area on Museum Island in the German capital, was the site of the Berlin protest, where demonstrators gathered with German flags and blue flags with the white dove of peace. Others brought drums and whistles with them to express their approval of the speakers at the front of the stage, which were also broadcast on two large screens on both sides.
The date of the Berlin protest was significant, as Oct. 3 is German Unity Day. In 1990, the recently democratized East Germany was absorbed into West Germany, officially known as the Federal Republic of Germany.
‘Immediate resignation’
Numerous speakers announced their attendance, including Markus Krall (Atlas Initiative), Hermann Ploppa, Heiko Schöning (Doctors for Enlightenment), Wolfgang Kochanek (The Whites / Entrepreneurs Stand Up), Dr. Heinrich Fiechtner, Ulrich Siegmund (AfD), Jan Veil (Free Left), and Ralf Ludwig (dieBasis).
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Almost every speaker demanded the immediate resignation of the government should it fail to improve its efficiency, take remedial action for the excess of COVID-19 lockdown policies, or allow itself to be held liable for its decisions and their consequences for the economy.
Other demands included counteracting the divisive polarization of German society, slowing down unchecked immigration, and helping end the war in Ukraine through negotiations instead of unconditional military support for Kiev.
On the other side of the street, Unter den Linden, were about 20 elderly women, “Grandmas against the Right.” They were joined by and formed a stark contrast with a handful of Antifa representatives, clad in black and waving black flags and wearing masks.
From Lust Garden, the pageant went via Unter den Linden in the direction of Alexanderplatz and back, where there were more speeches at the initial place.
A ‘New Party’
Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Wolfgang Kochanek of The Whites and Markus Krall of the Atlas Initiative announced the formation of a new party, representing a broad middle-class movement that would attract voters from a diverse political spectrum that have lost their faith in the old political system, especially those who didn’t care to vote anymore.
Krall promised a “super team” for the new party, economist and author Dr. Markus Krall wrote on Sept. 26 on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, but made no concrete statements.
“We’re going to create the #NeuePartei [German for “New Party”] in the middle, and we’re going to compete. We want to, and we will change Germany,” There will definitely be a political turnaround in Germany. Either a new force will establish itself in the center, which has been abandoned by the old parties, and will form a coalition with the AfD. Or sooner or later, the AfD will achieve an absolute majority.”
A remarkable detail about the new political initiative is that it doesn’t rule out a coalition with the steadily growing right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD). According to polls, the AfD recently scored about 20 percent of the votes despite isolation by the other mainstream German political parties.
“With this ‘bourgeois party of the center,’ from left-liberal to right-liberal, i.e., to the left of the AfD, we will compete against the other parties.” It is not a question of opposing the AfD but of catching those who do not want to join an AfD or support it. “The firewall against the AfD must fall,” said Kochanek, calling the boycott of the right wing group as “totally undemocratic.”
“Mrs. Merkel has thought that if the four old parties stick together and we build a firewall, nothing can happen to [the mainstream German political establishment]. This way, [they can] be in power in this country for the next 200 years. … This is a new kind of Socialist Unity Party of Germany,” Kochanek said, referencing the former German chancellor and the authoritarian ruling party of East Germany, which fell in 1989 after 40 years in power.
