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In February 1943, Sophie Scholl, 21, was beheaded. She was executed by the German Nazi regime for distributing leaflets urging the population to resist.
In November 2020, a 22-year-old woman takes a stage in Hannover. It has distributed flyers to protest the restrictions imposed by the German government to reduce the risk of spreading the new corona virus.
– I feel like Sophie Scholl, says the 22-year-old.
Read more: Thousands of people demonstrate against coronary restrictions in Berlin
It’s hard to define the movement that during the pandemic brought together thousands of people to protest against coronary restrictions in Germany. In the media, they are often called “Querdenker”, which directly means “cross thinker”. The origin is a group formed in Stuttgart in April, with the aim of lifting the restrictions imposed during the pandemic. The measures violate constitutionally protected rights, according to the Querdenker movement, which demands their cessation.
Critics of the Querdenker movement have also organized demonstrations during the pandemic. “Mouth guard instead of aluminum hat” reads the message on a poster at a demonstration in Leipzig in November.
Photo: Ronny Hartmann / AFP
Since the first demonstration in Stuttgart, a series of protests with thousands of participants have taken place in various parts of Germany. Here, the self-employed who want to save their finances have sided with right-wing extremists, people who deny the existence of the virus and opponents of vaccination. Police officers and journalists have been attacked in several demonstrations.
Recently, several German media reported that the founders of the Querdenker group had arranged a meeting with a well-known member of the anti-Semitic and racist movement “Reichsbürger”. Under the country’s constitution, organizations and parties that are deemed to harm or restrict democracy can be banned. Since a decision in March, the Reichsbürgerrörelsen is no longer allowed. Now several local politicians want the Querdenker movement to be investigated as well.
– We are rightly watching you, the Minister of the Interior in Baden-Württemberg recently said on German television.
Sven Reichardt, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Konstanz, he has studied movement.
– The protesters are united by their discontent. They question the government and distrust the established media, he says.
Read more: Protests in several countries demand a relief from coronary restrictions
According to Sven Reichardt This is not the first time that people with different ideologies and political perspectives have come together to achieve a common goal. During the 1980s, for example, West German Communists, Christian Democrats, and church representatives became closely involved in the peace movement. A clear difference is, according to Reichardt, that protesters today have access to social media and the Internet. This has allowed them to distance themselves from the established media and create their own information channels.
– In barely moderate discussion forums science is devalued. People say they know more about the coronavirus than trained virologists, says Sven Reichardt.
Read more: German conspiracy theorists a question for the country’s marriage therapists
Volksverpetzer blog founder Thomas Laschyk says members of the Querdenker movement spread myths and false news about, among other things, the corona vaccine.
Photo: Private
Thomas Laschyk, The founder of the blog Volksverpetzer, which focuses on denying fake news and conspiracy theories, writes to DN that people who are leaders in the Querdenker movement spread lies about the pandemic daily.
“Right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists claim that the crown pandemic is being used to turn Germany into a dictatorship. They demand that the government resign and that a new constitution be established,” he writes.
Myths that children should be suffocated by mouth guards and that the corona is no worse than a common flu have been circulating in Querdenker circles, according to Thomas Laschyk. So widespread was an accusation that virologist Christian Drosten, Anders Tegnell’s German equivalent, made up his Ph.D. that the university recently published an article on its website denying the rumor.
Thomas laschyk They believe that many people are tempted to believe conspiracy theories because they have a strong longing to hear that the coronavirus is not that dangerous.
“Many people wish that the crown was a harmless disease, then life would have been easier. That is why they like to believe in people who claim that it is so, ”he writes.
The Querdenker movement has attracted a lot of media attention, but a large majority of the German population wants to maintain or even tighten the crown’s restrictions. According to a poll released by the German ARD on November 20, 72 percent of those polled believe the restrictions are well balanced or should be tightened further.
During a protest in Munich in May, protesters used the Swedish flag as a symbol of freedom from the crown’s restrictions.
Photo: Sachelle Babbar / TT
The 22-year-old woman who at the rally in Hanover described himself as a new Sophie Scholl was quickly countered. A clip of the scene shows a spectator arriving and interrupting it.
– What nonsense, says the man, and accuses the woman of undermining the Holocaust.
The statement was also condemned and ridiculed on social media. In November, another quote from a protester, an 11-year-old girl who gave a speech in Karlsruhe, also elicited strong reactions. The girl shared how she recently secretly celebrated her birthday with her friends. The children were silent so that the neighbors did not realize that they were breaking the restrictions.
“It felt like Anne Frank’s hiding place,” said the 11-year-old.
Crown constraints mean undoubtedly restrictions on human freedom, says Professor Sven Reichardt. But comparing the current German government with Nazi Germany calls it absurd.
– When I heard the young woman describe herself as Sophie Scholl, I wondered what people really learned about history, she says.
