Last generation
Operation at the Chancellery: Police are investigating within their own ranks
According to a video, a plainclothes police officer painted a last generation activist’s face. This could now have consequences. photo
© Paul Zinken/dpa
Members of the so-called last generation are daubing the Chancellery. The police sometimes intervene harshly. Now the matter has repercussions – not just for the climate activists.
Berlin is investigating after a sometimes violent operation against activists from the Last Generation group at the Federal Chancellery Police in their own ranks: A criminal investigation was initiated against an official on suspicion of bodily harm in office, a spokeswoman said.
Depending on the outcome of these investigations, possible disciplinary proceedings will also be examined. A specialist commissioner at the State Criminal Police Office has taken over the case.
Some physical violence against activists
On Tuesday, activists from the group, which says it advocates for more climate protection, smeared the facades of the Chancellery with orange paint and wrote down slogans. Uniformed police officers and men in civilian clothes, apparently also police officers, sometimes used physical violence against the activists.
A video first posted by the “Berliner Zeitung” and also shared by the group Last Generation shows that one of the men dressed in civilian clothes acts harshly against two people and brings them to the ground. The video also suggests that he takes a paint brush out of one of the people’s hands and uses it to paint on at least one person’s face. The man who is now being investigated is a Berlin police officer, according to the police spokeswoman.
According to the police, a total of around 70 Last Generation demonstrators gathered in front of the Chancellery. Many of them held banners in their hands accusing Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) of “lying” about climate protection measures.
26 criminal investigations initiated
According to the balance sheet, the police temporarily detained 67 people involved in the operation, among other things to determine their personal details. 26 criminal investigations were initiated, including 24 for damage to property and one each for resisting law enforcement officers and one for assaulting law enforcement officers. In addition, the police initiated 43 proceedings for administrative offenses.
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said he assumed that the graffiti would be painted over relatively quickly. “And at least no one else was stuck in a traffic jam,” he adds, referring to the Last Generation group’s repeated road blockades. Hebestreit called the activists’ accusation that Chancellor Scholz was lying when he claimed that the government’s measures against the “climate catastrophe” were sufficient “propaganda.” Hebestreit said at the federal press conference when asked by a journalist that he didn’t want to ennoble them by dealing with it.