The "last generation" is becoming more dangerous by the day - and the rule of law is watching

At the end of October, a cyclist died in Berlin. The 44-year-old woman was run over by a cement mixer. A special fire brigade vehicle that should have helped extricate them got stuck in a traffic jam caused by "Last Generation" roadblocks.

The incident was a turning point: for the first time, a protest by the self-proclaimed climate rescuers had deadly consequences. And now, on Thursday evening, the next increase: A handful of activists cut through the fence around the Berlin BER airport with pliers, climbed through, blocked the maneuvering area with bicycles, and several members of the group stuck to the asphalt of the runway . Air traffic came to a standstill for two hours.

The term “climate glue” that the media have been attributing to the movement in recent weeks is now too harmless. The actions of the "Last Generation" are increasing from week to week, they are becoming increasingly dangerous. At Berlin Airport, the activists accepted that people could have died if an airplane had to carry out a rescue maneuver during a landing approach.

Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) wrote on Twitter in the evening of a "renewed escalation", Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) of "increasingly unscrupulous" actions, and a spokesman for the Federal Police spoke in the "Tagesthemen" of a "dangerous intervention in air traffic".

Apart from the fact that the group only harms the issue of climate protection, because hardly anyone with heart and mind should have more understanding for their methods: This is no longer a peaceful protest. The actions of the "last generation" are increasingly taking on terrorist traits. By definition, “terror” is the systematic and indiscriminate instillation of fear and terror—with the goal of making people compliant.

Although the members of the group do not use violence, those who negligently endanger human life can no longer claim to be protesting peacefully.

The radicalization of the "last generation" is taking place so quickly that the rule of law with its slowly grinding bureaucratic mills cannot keep up. In Berlin, the local police chief Barbara Slowik recently complained that the means are far too mild and far too limited to be able to keep up with the activists: the officers there have to work with almost educational means. Those that are actually intended for harmless demonstrators: dismissals, for example – or try workarounds that seem downright helpless. Recently, for example, climbing aids on sign gantries on Berlin motorway bridges were removed so that activists can no longer climb up so easily. As if they couldn't bring ladders.

The group, said the chief of police, has the city "in a stranglehold." Also because the officials now have far too little time due to the climate protests to fight serious crime in the city - such as the work of clan families.

In Bavaria it has been recognized that these radicals can only be countered with radical means: 33 supporters of the “last generation” are currently being held there in so-called preventive custody. The strict, quite controversial Bavarian police law makes this possible.

Bavaria, however, is largely irrelevant to the protest events; Berlin is the capital of the group's work, by a long way. The security authorities estimate that around 400 people are active there, who could initiate actions like those at the airport. But you can only fix it for 48 hours.

"One must not believe that these are long-term students who meet up from time to time to demonstrate on the street," says WELT investigative reporter Lennart Pfahler on the "Last Generation". He explains how the self-proclaimed climate activists are positioned.

Source: WORLD

The authorities, which are supposed to protect the country from serious threats, also know far too little about the group. Neither the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution nor other relevant state authorities have so far taken the “last generation” seriously. And the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has learned that they are still miles away from making the group a "case under observation" - which means that they are not even gathering information about how dangerous the group is or could become in the foreseeable future.

A hesitation that hopefully will not fall on the toes of the authorities any time soon.