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In Berlin, around 120 climate activists protested at the Chancellery on Wednesday to hand over letters to employees. A spokesman for the Berlin police reported to the AFP news agency that the activists had peacefully gathered in front of the building in Berlin-Mitte and handed over several letters to employees or put them in mailboxes.
The protest action initially began as a slow march with around 400 participants in the districts of Friedrichshain and Mitte, the police spokesman explained. Then about 120 people broke away from the crowd to go to the Chancellery, he said.
However, a statement by the group Last Generation said the “many hundreds of people” managed “peacefully and resolutely to get past various police blockades to the government building and there to hand over the signed letters to an employee”.
Accordingly, during the protests in several cities, activists had printouts of the open letter to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), which the last generation had sent to him last week.
The open letter said: “We wish that our protests are no longer needed. That your government acts in accordance with the constitution. That all the new people who are flocking to the last generation no longer find it necessary to hold sit-ins. We will end our protest as soon as the federal government convenes the social council.”
Scholz recently described the actions of the last generation as “completely crazy”. “This federal government is more committed to climate protection than any government before it,” emphasized the Chancellor.
On Wednesday, the Bavarian public prosecutor’s office had the apartments of members of the last generation searched in seven federal states. Accounts were also confiscated, assets secured and the group’s website blocked. Shortly thereafter, she declared that she still wanted to continue her protests – including in the form of protest marches.
The raids “hit the group hard, but we are not afraid,” said the last generation of the investigators’ actions.