Et is Monday evening at 8:20 p.m. when the demonstration train comes to a standstill in front of Leipzig Central Station. The police have formed a chain, no one can get through. “Resistance” and “free the road” demand the demonstrators. When her wish is not heeded, verbal insults against the emergency services follow. But they remain stable. The resisters have to heave to the left, much to their annoyance. “Everything like it used to be here,” one of them gets upset. The phrase could also apply to their posters, which still show Merkel in convict clothes. Perhaps there is a lack of personnel for renewal, there are only around 150 people who have gathered here behind the right-wing extremist micro-party “Freie Sachsen”. Earlier at the rally there were twice as many. The rest has probably ended up with the left, which is moving through the center with around 3,000 people. The police must ensure that the two do not meet.
That worked before on Augustusplatz. In view of the forecasts, the police had set up barricades between the Gewandhaus and the opera, but they weren’t necessary. The square in front of the opera belongs to the left, whose Leipzig member of the Bundestag Sören Pellmann first mobilized under the motto “Hot Autumn”. The right-wing extremists “Freie Sachsen” joined in and even put Pellmann and Gregor Gysi on their list of speakers, which they were forbidden to do by a court. On Monday, however, they are the first to be on the pitch. Some wrote on posters “I’m not taking part anymore”, “Protest instead of freezing” and “End politics against your own people!” A man with a megaphone tries to fire up a chant, but hardly anyone agrees. There are simply too few people there.
Protagonists of the right-wing extremist scene like Jürgen Elsässer and André Poggenburg try to emphasize the similarities with the left on the completely overdriven microphone. The opposition to the federal government is at the top. “In this situation, we cannot allow ourselves any differentiation,” calls Elsässer to “dear comrades Pellmann and Gysi” and asks them to let Sahra Wagenknecht speak. Their demands for an end to the sanctions against Russia and the opening of Nord Stream II are well received here. The top left has of course not yet joined. But, says Elsässer, it is “against the federal government, which he will call “cold mongers”, “gangsters” and “traitors of the people” in the course of his remarks.
Gregor Gysi from the party “Die Linke” at the autumn demonstration in Leipzig.
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Image: Jens Gyarmaty
On the opposite side, demo helpers are unrolling a huge banner with the inscription “There is no solidarity from the right”, which also serves as a privacy screen. Some participants in the right-wing extremist demo are now moving to the “left” side. Gysi, who is still a “safe bank” for the organizers, is supposed to speak there. Organizer Pellmann, who was expecting 4,000 people, is pleased that around 2,500 have come, and that will increase over the next hour. “Now is the time to act,” he shouts. “We have to take to the streets before millions are ruined.” Protests can perhaps alleviate hardship. The day of the week is completely irrelevant, he replies to the criticism of wanting to use the history of the Monday demonstrations from 1989. Rather, he wants to follow the Hartz IV protests of 2004.