The high energy bills are a shock – and a driving force for protests. Thousands are taking to the streets, especially in the east. The reasons lie deeper. The consequences could be far-reaching.
Master hairdresser Petra Scholz sent a warning ahead. A few days ago, she called out to demonstrators in Plauen, Saxony, that her speech would be “somewhat critical.” She was up to her neck in water, she was on the verge of losing everything, said the single mother. Then she spoke of resistance to corona vaccinations, of criticism of Western elites, of media guidelines “how we have to think”. At the end an outburst of anger against the “dictatorship of the West” and the government: “Let’s finally send them to hell!”
Similar scenes are repeating themselves in many places these days, especially in East Germany. Both the left and the AfD and various other right-wing groups are drumming up the “hot autumn” against the government’s energy and social policy. Thousands come, the influx is growing. On the Day of German Unity, the next round begins. In Plauen, the right-wing extremist Third Way is mobilizing this weekend, in Berlin it’s the “Craftsmen for Peace”.
Complaints about high gas and electricity bills mix with broadsides against traffic lights, general annoyance with fundamental doubts about the democratic system, outrage at the Ukraine war with criticism of the western sanctions against Russia – everything mixes with everything, the choice of words from right and left are suddenly similar. That’s a far cry from the “popular uprisings” feared by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. But autumn has only just begun.
“We are only at the beginning of the mobilization,” says Linken boss Martin Schirdewan of the German Press Agency. “There’s still a lot to come. In the next few weeks, many will receive greatly increased advance bills for gas and electricity. That affects millions of people. Our message is: We’re here.”
According to media reports, the Federal Criminal Police Office expects an increase in protests, as do constitutional protection officers. “We have to adjust to this scenario,” Dirk-Martin Christian, head of the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told the “Leipziger Volkszeitung”.
It seems clear that many people, especially in the east, are receptive to the latest calls for protests. “Basically, of course, the high energy prices and overall inflation are affecting everyone nationwide, but there are fewer assets in the east, a higher proportion of small companies with fewer reserves and lower incomes,” says Green politician Paula Piechotta of the dpa. The doctor of radiology comes from Gera and sits in the Bundestag for the Leipzig II constituency. “The wealth buffer in the West is just bigger.”
At the same time, memories of the years after reunification in the East are fresh, and confidence in politics is weak. According to the most recent report by East German representative Carsten Schneider, only 39 percent of the people in the East are satisfied with today’s democracy. Piechotta puts it this way: “The impression of some in the East, and you don’t have to share that, is that they got the arse card twice, in 1945 and in the 1990s, with traumatizing upheavals in each case than in West Germany.” The relationship with Russia is also more complicated for many in the East, and mistrust of NATO and the armaments industry is high.
Right-wing groups are getting involved in the dissatisfaction. This is how the Saxon constitutional protection officer Christian sees it: “The justified concerns and needs of the citizens only serve the right-wing extremists as a vehicle for their anti-constitutional agenda.” And Piechotta knows that too: “The demo events are different in the East, that’s just the way it is.” Right-wing structures were established in rural regions during the migration and Corona period – not only the AfD, but also right-wing extremist groups such as the Freie Sachsen. The structures would now be used again, just for a different topic.
Left party leader Schirdewan shares this analysis. “We, on the other hand, rely on broad democratic alliances on the ground,” he emphasizes. He hopes that the unions will soon get involved more broadly. In Leipzig they are on board for a demonstration on October 15th. So far, protests by the left have often been smaller than those by the right. Schirdewan spoke to just 150 people at a demo in Halle on September 17 – a nationwide day of action by the left.
The left tip attaches importance to sharply distinguishing itself from the right – also on the market places. That didn’t always work out. A few days ago in Brandenburg an der Havel, politicians from the left protested without much distancing with representatives of the AfD and the right-wing scene, as the left state leadership later criticized.
At the federal level, too, the lines are mixed – at least among some politicians. The complaint of “economic war”, the demand for the lifting of sanctions on Russia and the opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline come from the AfD politician Alice Weidel and the left-wing member of the Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht. Both emotionally insult the federal government as stupid and incompetent – almost like some demonstrators.
Wagenknecht sees no reason to differentiate himself from the AfD. She told the “Berliner Zeitung” that one should not “leave it to the AfD to be the only one to make real demands”. The fear of applause from the wrong side is an “extremely stupid discussion. When the AfD says the sky is blue, must all politically correct people claim that the sky is green? Don’t you understand that this is exactly what makes the right strong? “
Inflow seems to have the rights one way or the other. According to the Insa opinion trend survey for “Bild”, the AfD is currently number one in the eastern federal states with 27 percent approval, nationwide it is 15 percent. In the same survey, the left came to 5.5 percent nationwide and 8 percent in the east.
Piechotta appealed to the left to stand up against the right, at least at a local level, as before, with the Greens and SPD. If the AfD becomes even stronger in the East, it will become increasingly difficult for the other parties to form stable governments. “If this winter goes wrong, the east could become even more ungovernable because the middle will be further thinned out,” says the Green MP. In fact, in Plauen, for example, the DGB, Linke, SPD and others are mobilizing together against the right this weekend.
The Plauen master hairdresser Scholz, on the other hand, says: “The only extremists in this country are the Greens.” At the “People’s Assembly” last week, she demanded: “Go to every demo, no matter who organizes it.”
Article “Social protests in Germany” from Stern from September 15, 2022 Tweet Lauterbach on the proximity of Wagenknecht/Weidel from September 21, 2022 Sahra Wagenknecht with Markus Lanz on September 20, 2022 Alice Weidel and others with Maischberger on September 20, 2022 AfD spot with Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel on protests Bundestag speech Sahra Wagenknecht on September 8th, 2022 Demonstration call “Third Way” on October 2nd Speech by Stefan Hartung, Freie Sachsen, on September 17th, 2022 Article in Der Spiegel on August 22nd, 2022 The historian Herfried Münkler in an interview with the “Allgemeine Zeitung”. September 22, 2022 MDR report on a demo in Marienberg from September 22, 2022 Call for a “general strike” and a demo on October 1, 2022 Sahra Wagenknecht in the “Berliner Zeitung” from September 24, 2022 Report in the Leipziger Volkszeitung from September 26, 2022 Interview with the Saxon head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Christian from the Leipziger Volkszeitung from September 26, 2022 “Bild” with quotes from the demo organizers in Plauen, from September 26, 2022 Demo speech in Plauen from September 25, 2022 Demo call by the D GB West Saxony for October 2nd, 2022 Demo call for Third Way Plauen for October 2nd, 2022