Munich has a year full of protests – still a few Hundred come together on Saturday to demonstrate against the policy of the Federal Minister of the interior.

Pia Ratzesberger Pia Ratzesberger

the study of Economics, politics and Intercultural communication in Erlangen, Bologna and Munich. Scholarship holder at the Institute to promote journalistic talent (Ifp). Traineeship at the SZ with stops in Berlin and Brussels.

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He stood in this year, tens of thousands of people, in the summer, over at the Royal court, at that time you could see the mass of little consequence. This time it is easier. He steps on the stage, in front of him only a few hundred people, many of them he knows of the other demonstrations, the grannies against the Right, for example. Of course, you are back. Thomas Lechner bows to the micro and then says: “Feels almost like family.”

this Saturday, came less people than usual, the square in front of the state Opera house, once full, but Lechner is reminiscent of the successes of the past few months. “Without all this, what happened here in the summer, it would be today a lot of Zap dusterer.”

It was a special summer for Munich, a special year. The city has been months of protest in which many people went for the first Time in her life on the road, against rights rhetoric, against the policy of the CSU, against high Rents. It is networked with many different groups and alliances and parties in the city. And this Saturday many of the people that were in the past few months, with gather, for the last Time this year. But not without, once again, to make it clear what it’s all about you: a new, more open policy. And that is why they are now calling for the resignation of Federal interior Minister Horst Seehofer. “It is unbelievable what the man has done and yet he is still in office,” says Thomas Lechner.

on the Front of the stage, he is in the middle of the further claims, among other things, of his Alliance for human rights and democracy, the refugee Council and the caravan Munich. You call for a stop of deportation to Afghanistan. They demand that the armature centers are closed. They demand that all Refugees be given the right to work, regardless of their residence status. “We must not stop now,” says a young woman in the audience.

her name is Lena Hofbauer, and was present at all of the major demonstrations of the past few months. In may, as tens of thousands against the new police law took to the streets, #nopag. In July, as tens of thousands against the policy and the xenophobic rhetoric of the CSU protested #out-hustles – Thomas Lechner had organized on the stage the Demonstration at the time. In September, as thousands of people against the high Rents demonstrated, #ausspekuliert. In October, shortly before the state election, the Alliance of #nopag and #out rushing again to the Protest, under the Motto “this is it”.

this Celtabet year, Lena Hofbauer, 24, on as many demonstrations as never before in her life and yet she is here again today in front of the state Opera. Her concern is that right-wing populists sit in the Parliament, that right-wing slogans be gegrölt in Germany. She says: “I don’t want to have to tell my children later that I have watched and done nothing.” For the same reason, another woman came in that day. She is Hofbauer fifty years older than Lena, but she’s doing the same.

It will soon go also to new forms of protest

Milka Tišma is, on the head she wears a blue hat with the stars of the European Union. On the plate in her Hand, grandma’s is against the Law. Also Milka Tišma was in this year in all of the major demonstrations in the city, but it’s not their first, by far. Already as a medical student, she has protested against the Practical year. In the 1980s, then you stand at the Rock against the Right in the audience, resisted in Wackersdorf.

In the 1960s, it was came as a guest worker from the former Yugoslavia to Germany, never your fear was so great as it is today, she says. For the same reasons, the listing also Lena Hofbauer. Because of right-wing populism is stronger. Because the limit of the sayable in society shifts. Milka Tišma says: “I’m moving anyway in the direction of the tomb, but I do the young people suffering.” Also, you want to be accused of never in your life, to have done nothing and you don’t want to today. That is why they came here, like 250 other people. So many, at least, counts the police in front of the state Opera.

On the way to the University will always connect even more people to, among other things, another Demonstration against deportation to Senegal, at the end of about 500 people on Geschwister-Scholl-Platz

Thomas Lechner is sure that it will be in the coming year, to thousands. Today, I have simultaneously taken place in Milbertshofen a rally against Pegida, this is also a reason for the smaller group. Only the demonstrations, he says, but would not be enough soon, anyway. It will also need to civil disobedience, to go, to new forms of protest. He, for example, was willing to hide people under threat of deportation. “And I hope many others also.” The audience claps. They are to this day less than in the past few months. But they are still there.