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According to the police, around 2,000 people marched through Berlin-Mitte on Sunday afternoon and evening to demonstrate against Corona’s measures.
Very few participants maintained the mask requirement and the distance requirement. The Berlin police were on duty with 600 officers, but let the protest unfold for the time being despite violations of Corona’s requirements.
By 12 noon, the protesters had gathered at Alexanderplatz. From there, they wanted to move through the Red Town Hall and Karl-Marx-Alle to Bersarinplatz in Friedrichshain.
The situation worsened shortly after the demonstration began. When the train was initially not allowed to start because the participants were not wearing masks, some of the protesters left the crowd and headed towards Karl-Marx-Allee without a police escort.
There they met in front of the “Kosmos”, an old cinema where the world health summit was originally supposed to take place. Supporters of conspiracy theories had mobilized to protest the meeting.
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The demonstration was registered with 2,500 participants. However, the police underestimated the action and, according to the Tagesspiegel, initially with emergency services in the double-digit range, the situation was chaotic.
In the early afternoon, the protest in Karl-Marx-Allee was a bit quieter, the police held back. Compliance with the distance requirement and the mask requirement was only verified in isolated cases.
Posts on Twitter show protesters blocking the way for an ambulance and a fire truck, officers did not intervene.
At the request of the Tagesspiegel, the Berlin police press office explained that they assessed the protest as “very dynamic”, but were still working on a more detailed statement.
Around 3:30 pm the mood changed: to prevent the police from separating, the organizers declared the demonstration over. According to a police spokeswoman, the officers entered the stage and turned off the organizers’ speakers.
However, the protesters resisted the police request to leave the meeting place. There were riots and the atmosphere was tense. Several people were arrested.
A larger group of demonstration participants briefly surrounded some police officers. Several calls were made to “surround the police.” In the end, the officers fought to free themselves.
According to a police spokeswoman, another demonstration that was supposed to be used to protest against the crown’s policy in Berlin has been canceled on short notice. The organizer canceled the demonstration in Großer Stern around 5 pm by phone, the spokeswoman said Sunday evening. Originally, around 10,000 participants were registered for the rally. The organizers initially could not be reached for comment.
The meeting on Karl-Marx-Allee was also interrupted around 6 pm However, in the internal channels of the “lateral thinkers”, according to the information of Tagesspiegel, people are asked to go to the State Office of Criminal Police at Tempelhofer Damm. Markus Haintz, a lawyer for the movement, who was arrested at noon, is said to be here.
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Around 150 people, including families with children, took part in a counter-demonstration at the Weberwiese metro station near the “Kosmos”. In between, there were discussions with the “lateral thinking” protesters.
A scene our reporter observed shows how a counter-protester shows the middle finger to the “side thinkers” and is then controlled by the police. He wears a mask. Police did not approach the three unmasked protesters.
Unknown persons threw incendiary devices at the Robert Koch Institute
Originally, the World Health Summit was supposed to take place on the “Kosmos”, attended by virologist Christian Drosten and members of the Robert Koch Institute. An arson attack was carried out against the latter on Sunday night.
According to the police, several unidentified persons threw incendiary devices on a building of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin-Schöneberg. A security guard noticed the attack around 2:40 a.m.
Consequently, the attackers are said to have set flammable liquid bottles on fire and threw them at the facade. A window pane was broken and there was a fire in a room. The security guard was able to put out the fire and alerted the police. No one was injured.
Call through the Telegram messaging service
Renowned spokespersons for the “lateral thinkers”, such as otolaryngologist Bodo Schiffmann and lawyer Markus Haintz, had also mobilized against the World Health Summit. Attila Hildmann, cookbook author and anti-Semitic conspiracy ideologue, also activates his followers through the Telegram messaging service.
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In the “Kosmos” of the Karl-Marx-Alle, lectures and debates of the “World Health Summit” were originally supposed to take place. At Tagesspiegel’s request, the operators of the old cinema announced that no element of the conference program would take place. Due to the high number of infections, the meeting will be held online.
It is not clear why the “lateral thinkers” still mainly mobilized out into the cosmos. At 1:00 pm, a counter-demonstration of the mountain party was going to take place at the Weberwiese metro station under the slogan “The Impferium Strikes Back”, and other left-wing groups also wanted to take to the streets against the skeptics of the pandemic measures.
Hotel Park Inn denies rumors of cooperation with “lateral thinkers”
Meanwhile, the Radisson-Group’s Park Inn Hotel on Alexanderplatz has rejected allegations that there is cooperation between the hotel and the “lateral thinking” movement.
Information that circulated on the organization’s internal chat channels that protesters arriving from abroad would receive a discount on hotel room contingents through a special code was denied to Tagesspiegel.
Park Inn manager Jürgen Gangl said they expressly distance themselves from the rally’s objectives and will “crack down on the crown’s measures” if guests violate the crown’s measures.
