Have the German anti-masks dropped the political mask?
Sunday, this is the conclusion that we could draw from the views of the clashes that punctuated the end of the rally.
Indeed, between 300 and 400 neo-Nazis and nostalgic for the German Empire (1871-1918) flocked to the Reichstag, seat of the German parliament, at the end of an anti-mask demonstration which brought together several dozen of thousands of people in Berlin, Saturday August 29.
The majority of these demonstrators presented themselves as apolitical or "free thinkers".
This assault on one of the main symbols of German democracy was unanimously denounced by the political class.
The different groups that called to demonstrate have also distanced themselves from an act that weakened the image they want to convey: a movement outside the traditional political game.
Thinking Differently 711 movement
But most political commentators saw it as proof of the ideological proximity between the far right and these protesters contesting the government's health policy to fight the Covid-19 epidemic.
“The radical right has left its mark on the movement,” assured Simon Teune, political scientist and specialist in political mobilization in Europe, interviewed by the Deutsche Presse Agentur press agency.
These demonstrators had however managed, until now, to escape any political labeling.
The great parade of August 1 had been described by the media as a gathering of “traditional” families, conspiracy theories, political opponents of Chancellor Angela Merkel and elements of the extreme right.
To understand the ideological development of this protest, we have to go back to its beginnings, in Stuttgart, in the spring.
It was there that about fifty people responded to the call of a local computer engineer of 45, Michael Ballweg, to demonstrate, on April 18, against measures of social distancing deemed to infringe individual freedom.
Week after week, the movement spreads across the country.
Michael Ballweg, who became the main spokesperson for the anti-masks for the German media, then founded the “Querdenken 711” (“think differently” movement, 711 corresponding to the Stuttgart telephone code).
He presents his initiative as apolitical and repeats, from one demonstration to another, that he does not want to march alongside extremist militants.
He himself does not fail to stress, on the occasion of the rare interviews granted to the press, that he has never been politically active in the past.
But his new role as a major organizer of the protest against German anti-Covid measures quickly brought him into contact with personalities with a sulphurous political reputation.
He cooperates, thus, with Anselm Lenz, a theater director and writer, passed from the far left to excessive conspiracy in favor of the coronavirus epidemic.
This Berliner is also organizing anti-mask demonstrations in the German capital, while denouncing what he calls a “dictatorship of the state of health emergency”.
Negationist and QAnon
Michael Ballweg also discovers sympathies for conspiratorialists classified on the extreme right of the political spectrum such as Ken Jebsen, a freelance Russophile “journalist” who has made remarks deemed anti-Semitic in the past and counts as a “traveling companion” the populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
The Stuttgart entrepreneur was also caught in the act of repeating slogans from the far-right American movement QAnon, during the demonstration on August 1.
Michael Ballweg zitiert gerade den # QAnon-Slogan "Where we go one, we go all" und bezieht sich explizit positiv auf "Q".
Old Jubel.
# b0108
- Felix Huesmann (@felixhuesmann) August 1, 2020
It didn't take much more for Nikolai Nerling, an influential German negationist videographer in far-right circles, to dub Michael Ballweg, deemed “sympathetic and open-minded”.
This extremist only criticizes “Querdenken 711”: their call on German Muslims to demonstrate during the rally on August 29 in Berlin…
For extremists of all stripes, especially on the right, the displayed apolitism of Michael Ballweg and his organization is a godsend, judges political scientist Simon Teune.
The lack of a solid ideological backbone makes this movement porous to their ideas.
"It is not by chance that all that Germany has of Nazillions and populists called for demonstrations on August 29," noted the Amadeu Antonio foundation, which fights against the far right in Germany.
The German press continues to insist that an overwhelming majority of the population supports public measures to fight the Covid-19 epidemic.
The political recovery of the anti-mask movement by the far right is no less dangerous, underlines the newspaper Handelsblatt.
After all, the anti-Muslim Pegida movement began in October 2014 with modest protests before hardening and becoming a serious political thorn in the side of Angela Merkel's government.
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