North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul on Thursday raised serious allegations against some of the approximately 35,000 demonstrators who took part in protests against the destruction of the village of Lützerath in the Rhineland last Saturday. The CDU politician reported to the interior committee of the Düsseldorf state parliament that some climate activists had deliberately tried to steal their service weapons from police officers. He rejected allegations of excessive police violence. According to Reul, the civil society part of the climate movement had not distanced itself enough from violent criminals and was “appropriated and exploited” by left-wing extremists on Saturday. Politicians from the SPD, FDP and AfD accused the Greens of not clearly distancing themselves from violent criminals.
Reul reported in the NRW parliament that militant activists had thrown stones, lumps of mud and pyrotechnics at the police officers and hit them with wooden slats. Looking back, an official told him that the troublemakers had “sought for conditions similar to war” and were looking for “a battle” in front of the Lützerath fence. A total of around 500 crimes were committed in the days before, during and after the evacuation of the hamlet in the Rhenish lignite mining area, including bodily harm and serious breaches of the peace.
Did activists take up police guns?
Lützerath was cleared because the energy company RWE wants to burn the lignite underneath to generate electricity. In return, the green climate protection ministers Robert Habeck (Bund) and Mona Neubaur (NRW) had negotiated an eight-year early phase-out of coal for 2030 in West Germany. The climate movement had meanwhile declared the village to be the German 1.5-degree limit and a symbol of their resistance.
Reul said on Thursday that during the riots in front of Lützerath, some militant disruptors had apparently managed to grab the pistols on the police officers’ legs and “already released one of the safety devices on the holster”. The CDU politician added: “I don’t even want to imagine what could have happened there.”
Climate activists had demonstrated in front of Reul’s ministry on Tuesday this week and stuck.
(Photo: Michael Gstettenbauer/imago)
At the same time, the interior minister admitted that five police officers involved in the operation were now being investigated on suspicion of physical harm in office. Reul denied allegations by the climate activists that the police had deliberately injured demonstrators with batons on the head and neck: These were “prohibited hit zones”. Rather, “the police officers have shown that our state, our rule of law, works”.
The CDU politician regretted that the more middle-class part of the protest movement was not distancing itself enough and had even moved with the militant demonstrators to the edge of the opencast mine and in front of the fence in Lützerath: “There were too many people who had a good cause, but have not differentiated themselves from violent criminals.”
The head of the North Rhine-Westphalia Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Jürgen Kayser, added during the committee meeting that the left-wing extremists in Lützerath had “dissolved the boundaries” between militant and bourgeois protest. Reul sharply criticized a speaker at the rally two kilometers from Lützerath. The spokesman for the regional anti-lignite alliance “All villages remain” had called out to the demonstrators: “Go in to Lützerath. Don’t let them stop you.”
During a subsequent debate in the committee, speakers from all parties thanked the police officers for their efforts. On behalf of the Greens, who rule with the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia, MP Julia Höller also said that she would like to thank “everyone who contributed to the de-escalation strategy” before and during the eviction.
FDP MP Marc Lürbke voiced sharp criticism of the Greens. In Lützerath, one “saw through a magnifying glass what happens if the left-green camp does not distance itself” from violent forces. Lürbke spoke of “left-wing eco-terrorism” and recalled that five years ago the Greens held a small party conference on the edge of the then contested Hambach opencast mine: “In the end, these are the ghosts I called out to!” Höller denied the allegations.