Climate adhesives want to recruit students – Minister of Justice sounds the alarm

As the “Welt am Sonntag” found out by participating in the group’s internal information events, the climate activists of the “last generation” want to inform schoolchildren about “civil resistance” as a means of political pressure in lectures at educational institutions and win new comrades-in-arms for their actions. The “priority goal” of the lectures was “clarification” about the actions of climate activists, it said.

The activists want to be invited to the educational institutions by teachers, school directors and alliances such as “Teachers for Future”. The target group is “mainly” high school students who can network with the activists with their smartphones. In addition, there were also inquiries from elementary schools, “that is also a possibility,” it said. Parents’ opinions can be influenced by children.

Climate adhesives want to recruit students – Minister of Justice sounds the alarm

Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) was alarmed by the plans. Leading representatives of the “last generation” committed “continued crimes,” Buschmann told the “Welt am Sonntag”. Some sow “time and again skepticism about representative democracy”. Such ideas can be “critically discussed and classified in class”. “But the red carpet should not be rolled out in a school for anyone who represents such ideas,” Buschmann clarified.

The parliamentary manager of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei, also criticized the plans of the activists. Schools in Germany should not be “misused as a platform for a radical group” whose members do not shy away from criminal offenses, the CDU politician told the “Welt am Sonntag”. The members of the “Last Generation” had “long since said goodbye to democratic discourse”. Therefore, the group “cannot be a partner for schools”.

“School shelter abused and exploited”

The President of the German Teachers’ Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, also sees the permissible limit being exceeded when “school management or teachers invite organizations and speakers to the school who explicitly promote participation in illegal activities and use the school as a quasi-recruitment scene”. As a result, the “school shelter is abused and exploited,” said Meidinger, according to the media report.

“What do we tell parents whose children subsequently commit crimes because they were encouraged to participate in such violations at school?” argued Meidinger. The head of the teachers’ association therefore called on the school ministries and state governments to “make it absolutely clear” that such events are “not allowed”.