A year ago, Freiberg in Saxony was often the subject of nationwide reports.

The city of 40,000 at the foot of the Ore Mountains had become a center of the Corona protests, and today there are demonstrations every Monday - because of rising energy prices, against the war in Ukraine or the federal government's Russia policy.

On this Wednesday afternoon, however, it is only a single man who calls for "Peace with Russia" on a poster in front of Café Hartmann.

When the Federal President arrives in front of the café for a planned meeting with Freiberg citizens, a few “warmonger” calls can be heard, which he briefly mentions inside.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier has once again moved his official residence from Berlin to the provinces;

for three days he is traveling in the university and mountain town, who,

Stephen Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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This is what the coffee table is about, which the Office of the Federal President describes as “controversial” in advance, probably to counteract possible prejudices.

Twelve people, half women and half men from different parts of the population, have taken their seats, and Steinmeier gets straight to the point: "I also came because I heard about the protests," he says.

"Where are the cracks?", "Where do you see a split," he wants to know.

Directly opposite him sits the man who is still involved in initiating the demo to this day.

Thorsten Hedrich-Wild replies that his trust in politics has been gone since the Infection Protection Act was passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat on one day and then signed by Steinmeier, while the police used water cannons against demonstrators outside.

Resentment about the complexity of the world becomes clear

Steinmeier wants to know why it is so difficult to accept a decision made with a democratic majority, whereupon a fundamental problem becomes clear: Hedrich-Wild fundamentally doubts the pandemic;

there were never tests and masks for the flu, he says.

Even if Corona seemed far away again in view of the current crises, Steinmeier's coffee table makes it clear that the injuries from the Corona period have hardly gotten over.

It's also about vaccination.

At the table sits a geriatric nurse who did not have herself vaccinated and laments the stigmatization caused by the facility-related obligation to vaccinate.

"Am I a worse nurse because I'm unvaccinated?" No, says Steinmeier.

"Not that one.

But according to a majority of immunologists, you are a higher risk for patients.”

Another woman who organizes the Tafel in the mountain town on a voluntary basis interjects that she has been vaccinated four times and that people in other countries cannot afford such luxury discussions because they would not be compensated for the loss of earnings in the event of an infection and that is why almost everyone went to get vaccinated.

However, criticism can also be heard that companies have made money from the pandemic, masks and vaccines, as well as the resonating allegation that they have deliberately enriched themselves, even fueled a pandemic hysteria.

In general, you can feel how much the complexity of the world and probably also the unreasonable demands of modernity cause many to create.

She has an urgent wish that politicians do not constantly go on talk shows, but think things through first and only then express themselves, says the chairwoman of the Freiberg trade association.

Another woman wrote herself a note so she wouldn't forget any of the problems that were bothering her.

It's about vaccination, but also about the war, arms deliveries and the increasing number of refugees.

"Our government allows all of this," she complains, who reports that she goes to demonstrations on Mondays and teaches refugees German.

"Our culture is being thrown out," she says.

It used to be "cosy, more homely", but today there is no longer any cohesion,