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Stuttgart (dpa) - The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Baden-Württemberg is the first in Germany to observe the “lateral thinking” movement.
As the German Press Agency in Stuttgart learned on Wednesday, the state office classified "lateral thinking 711" as an object of observation.
The group, which has been taking to the streets against the state-imposed corona restrictions for months, is radicalizing and has been infiltrated by extremists, according to security circles.
The founder of the “lateral thinking” movement is the Stuttgart entrepreneur Michael Ballweg.
Baden-Württemberg's Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) and the President of the Protection of the Constitution Beate Bube want to provide information on how to deal with the “lateral thinking” movement in the morning, said a ministry spokesman for the dpa.
Strobl had recently warned of the increasing influence of extremists and constitutional enemies in the ranks of the "lateral thinkers".
The movement is fed by Reich citizens, self-administrators, right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists who instrumentalized the demonstrators.
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The Stuttgart “lateral thinking” founder Ballweg has repeatedly defended himself against the allegations.
Most recently, the entrepreneur told the dpa at the end of last week: "We are a peaceful movement and not a political party."
Extremism, violence, anti-Semitism and inhuman ideas have just as little place in the "lateral thinkers" as the symbols of these ways of thinking.
Supporters of the initiative “lateral thinking 711”, the abbreviation comes from the Stuttgart phone code 0711, and offshoots of the movement have taken to the streets in numerous German cities against restrictions in the corona crisis in recent months.
The mixture of participants is diverse: it ranges from rather bourgeois demonstrators, esotericists, peace movements to Reich citizens and openly right-wing extremists.
Recently, there had been repeated violence in the vicinity of the demonstrations.
The interior ministers' conference also wants to deal with the issue this Thursday.
Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) had already called for the movement to be monitored quickly.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201209-99-624176 / 3