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According to the police, thousands of people flocked to the central rally of the “lateral thinking” movement on the Cannstatter Wasen in Stuttgart on Saturday to demonstrate against the corona requirements.

The police had been set up in the city with hundreds of officers at different locations since the morning because ten rallies, some of them different, had been registered.

“We observe thousands of administrative offenses - taking action against them now and specifically is relatively difficult.

Violations are documented and followed up, ”wrote the spokesman for the city of Stuttgart, Sven Matis, on“ Twitter ”.

In advance, the authorities assumed 2500 participants in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt.

This number was already clearly exceeded in the early afternoon.

However, the Stuttgart police could not give exact figures.

The applicants assumed 6000 people.

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The "lateral thinking" movement and its comrades-in-arms speak out against the current Corona measures.

The movement is being observed by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Baden-Württemberg.

When asked whether people on their way to the Wasen wore masks, the Stuttgart police spokesman Stefan Keilbach said: "I see 20 people here with masks, and they are police officers."

The "lateral thinker" scene is also against a possible vaccination requirement

Source: Getty Images / Thomas Niedermueller

Four demos have been registered for Saturday in Stuttgart - the largest with around 2500 participants in the “lateral thinker” scene

Source: REUTERS

Previously, counter-demonstrators had tried to prevent the elevator of participants in a gathering against the corona measures from moving to the Cannstatter Wasen.

"They were partially masked with bicycles or sat on the federal highway 14 and are still there now," said a police spokesman in the afternoon.

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The police will have to carry them away in an emergency because the street must be cleared.

Officials tried it first with speeches and evictions.

A video on "Twitter" shows a demonstrator on the edge of the train trying to hit a journalist.

"Fuck off you son of a bitch," says the man after he swung in the direction of the other person's face.

As the Stuttgart police later wrote on “Twitter”, the suspect was identified.

Another photographer reported that a participant tried to tear the mask off his face.

The requirements of the demonstration train, which was on the way from Marienplatz in downtown Stuttgart to the central rally on the Cannstatter Wasen, were largely not adhered to, according to the police.

The officers kept telling people to put on masks and keep the prescribed distances.

Police helicopters were used to document what was happening over the city area.

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In a tweet from the police it was said: “We will document violations of masks and spacing that are conclusive.” A photographer from the German Press Agency reported that there was a fair mood among the participants in the meeting on Marienplatz.

Ministry pissed off

The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Health reacted with incomprehension to the scenes in the Stuttgart city area.

"I do not understand that the city has maneuvered itself into this situation with full eyesight," said Ministerial Director Uwe Lahl on Saturday.

Both in writing and in a personal phone call, he had shown the mayor of Stuttgart, Clemens Maier, the possibilities that the state's Corona regulation also offers for a ban on large-scale demonstrations.

"My prognosis is that the hygiene rules will not be adhered to at the event," Lahl said on Friday.

At that time, however, the city of Stuttgart saw no way for a ban.

How can one explain to the population that only five people from two households are allowed to meet on the Easter holidays, while thousands of demonstrators marched through the city without a mask and without a minimum distance.

"The right to demonstrate is a valuable asset, but in a pandemic there are also limits to it," said Lahl.

Last summer, up to 10,000 people demonstrated on the Wasen.

Most recently, on March 20, a demonstration in Kassel with more than 20,000 people hit the headlines - only 6,000 were allowed. There were sometimes violent clashes.