The District Court of Fürstenfeldbruck has sentenced three climate activists to a small fine for coercion. Two of them had tied themselves to a bridge railing over Autobahn 96 at the beginning of the IAA motor show in 2021, causing a blockage. The court did not agree with the prosecutor’s allegation, which had indicted 1,296 cases of coercion because so many people were stuck in traffic. Judge Martin Ramsauer did not want to get involved in calculating the number of people affected. However, he assumes that at least one person felt compelled and imposed 30 daily rates of 20 to 30 euros.
This differs significantly from the sentence that the prosecutors had put in the room. The Munich II public prosecutor wanted to have the case before the lay judges. This is responsible if a sentence of two to four years in prison is to be expected. The prosecution described this procedure as an “act of general prevention”. Ramsauer ruled that he was responsible as a single judge.
The defendants admitted from the outset what happened. On September 7, 2021, Mirjam Herrmann and Kim Schulz, both 25, tied themselves to the railing of a railway bridge over the A96 near Germering. Susanne Egli, 40, took photos and posted them. They wanted to get as much attention as possible for the protest against the IAA and for climate protection. The media reported nationwide. The activists hung on the railing for about two hours. The police blocked the A96 towards Munich.
The accused had deliberately used the police as a “tool”.
The traffic jam of several kilometers was the basis for the charge of coercion in 1296 cases. An employee of the Southern Bavaria Motorway Directorate calculated the number of occupants. He was called as a witness but did not appear. According to the prosecutor, the accused deliberately used the police as a “tool” to block the highway. But such an action is in no reasonable proportion to the protest against the IAA: if you wanted to block every event that you didn’t like, there would be many roadblocks. And in order to achieve the legitimate “long-term goal” of climate protection, blocking the IAA is also not appropriate.
Defense attorneys Alexander Rossner, Johannes Hehnen and Klaus Schulz emphasized that the defendants did not act directly on the drivers. It was the police who decided to block it. The action was a gathering, but this was never effectively broken up. And anyway, because of the climate catastrophe to be expected, it is proportionate to influence politics with such an action: here a manageable number of drivers in traffic jams, there the danger to the lives of countless people.
In statements, some of which were emotional, the accused made it clear that they had not tied themselves to a motorway bridge out of whim and that four days in preventive detention had not been fun. In the past, they have taken many of the usual political paths, demos, petitions, joining parties. However, experience shows that an effective climate policy cannot be achieved in this way. Hence the way of civil disobedience.
Judge Ramsauer justified his verdict by saying that the accused had exercised “violence within the meaning of the law”. The police had no choice but to block. With their action, the accused had forced many “fellow citizens” into traffic jams, saying that this “instrumentalization” was “reprehensible action.” He does not see a justifying state of emergency, after all, democracy works in Germany, so the usual paths have to be followed. The judge recognized the seriousness of the climate crisis. But if one approved of self-help as in the case of the anti-IAA campaign, other people with other goals would also invoke it. Then the social peace would be endangered.