The Munich police advise all commuters and residents not to drive in or through the city on Monday if possible, but rather to switch to public transport. The reason is the opening event of a week of action by the Bavarian Farmers’ Association (BBV), which it called in protest against the federal government’s policies. The core of the opening event is a two-hour rally that will be held on Odeonsplatz from 11 a.m.
The police are expecting “traffic disruptions throughout the city from the early hours of the morning” because the 5,000 participants announced by the BBV want to chug into the city center with, among other things, a thousand tractors. The maximum permissible speed of agricultural vehicles is 40 km/h; in a column they are likely to travel significantly slower. As the police further announced, the participants’ journeys had already been registered as “moving meetings”.
The demonstrators meet in the morning at various collection points outside the city and then drive in a star shape through Munich to Odeonsplatz. The paths should flow from the north via the Mittlerer Ring into Leopoldstrasse. Like Ludwigstrasse, this is then intended as a parking area for the tractors. If Ludwig and Leopoldstrasse are not enough, Theresienwiese will be made available as an additional parking space. The rally participants should then take the subway to Odeonsplatz.
In the slipstream of the farmers, the right-wing scene is mobilizing
In view of the incidents surrounding Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), who was prevented from leaving a ferry in Schleswig-Holstein by an angry mob on Thursday evening, the Munich police expressly warned on Friday: “Targeted blockades that are purely intended to lead to disruptions will in no way tolerated, but consistently prevented or pursued by the police forces as far as possible.” Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) had previously warned farmers to keep order at a press conference in Nuremberg: “I can only strongly advise that the limits be set correctly.” Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber (CSU) also appealed to the demonstrators to “stick to the rules and not risk any criminal offenses.” She also called for ensuring that “radical and anti-constitutional forces do not infiltrate the peaceful demonstrations and misuse them for their own purposes.”
This comment is not unfounded, because in the slipstream of the farmers’ protests, the right-wing scene is currently mobilizing. Calls to support farmers on Monday are circulating on various media platforms, but also for strikes. However, only unions are allowed to call for strikes. And on its Telegram channel, the “Munich stands up” alliance, which is part of the lateral thinker scene, is distributing, for example, a letter from Bielefeld law professor Martin Schwab, the top candidate of the right-wing party “Die Basis” in the 2022 state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, in which he states quite clearly calls for a split in the farmers’ association: “We don’t need such ‘interest groups’! The time has long since come when civil society has to organize itself without such associations.” As a rule, such agitators are not concerned with the concerns of farmers, but rather with a general reckoning with the political system, up to and including its abolition.
The federal government’s plan is still “out of the question”
The farmers’ anger was sparked in December by the federal government’s plan to cancel tax breaks previously granted to them for agricultural diesel and motor vehicles. The government in Berlin has partially withdrawn this, but “the proposals are still out of the question for me and the farmers’ association,” says BBV President Günther Felßner. Which is why his association wants to continue the protests. The fact that he announces that “we will paralyze Germany if necessary” and speaks of “interventions in the infrastructure” in order to enforce his demands also attracts groups with anti-constitutional and subversive goals.
In any case, no one should be surprised by a heated atmosphere in Munich on Monday, not even by riots. “The Munich police have prepared extensively for this operation,” the press office of the police department announced on Friday as a precautionary measure. We are in contact with other police associations in Bavaria.