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Germany’s national intelligence agency has identified “intensified escalation potential” within the Querdenker movement that includes skeptics of the coronavirus.
Germany’s national intelligence agency BfV said the large involvement of the “Querdenker” (lateral thinker) movement, seen in the recent protests against the Corona lockdown, harbored “intensified escalation potential.”
The Cologne-based office charged with upholding Germany’s post-war constitution told Funke Media Group newspapers on Thursday that this had been the case in large protests where far-right groups had urged attendance.
Small demonstrations also took place and were largely peaceful, the BfV said, adding that there were “attacks” against police units and representatives of the media in large concentrations.
Querdenker supporters, including coronavirus skeptics and anti-lockdown protesters, claim that the COVID-19 pandemic and long-established federal and regional laws aimed at stopping the spread of the pathogen infringe on citizens’ freedoms.
A climactic moment came in August, when extremists tried to fight their way into the Reichstag building in Berlin and enter the German parliament, resulting in arrests.
More than 20,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Germany since the start of the pandemic and more than 1.2 million people have been infected with the coronavirus.
The BfV assessment preceded a two-day conference by federal interior minister Horst Seehofer and his counterparts from Germany’s 16 regional states.
Under surveillance in a state
On Wednesday, Baden-Württemberg state interior minister Thomas Strobel announced that the Stuttgart-based “Querdenker 711” movement had been put under observation by that state’s own intelligence agency.
The head of the state agency, Beate Bube, said the observation status allowed her staff to use the full range of measures to monitor the group, usually informants and wiretaps.
“Querdenker is opposed to the peaceful democratic order,” Bube said.
Boris Pistorius, interior minister of the northern German state of Lower Saxony, welcomed Baden-Württemberg’s move, saying: “From within the movement, legitimate protest against the coronavirus measures has become a attack on the state and democracy “.
Herbert Reul, the interior minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told the RND news network: “One problem is that people in the movement are becoming increasingly violent.”
That left police squads forced to defend the right to demonstrate at large events having to decide between “the good and the bad,” Reul said.
German media outlet t-online reported that messages among Querdenker circles on the social media channel Telegram discussed a day of action using large vehicles to block sensitive transport exchanges.
Germany’s federal criminal police agency said so and cooperating security authorities were alert to the risks posed by such a scenario.
