Activists from the German “Letzte Generation” movement are threatening to disrupt the Berlin marathon on Sunday, a week after spraying paint on the monument at the Brandenburg Gate, the finish line of the event. “We are going to interrupt the Berlin marathon. We cannot run away from the climate catastrophe,” said this movement in a press release on Friday, without giving further details.
On September 12, Letzte Generation (“Last Generation” in French editor’s note) had already tried, in a joint action with the French movement “Dernière Rénovation”, to disrupt the football match between Germany and France in Dortmund. The action had failed, the four activists having been “caught” before, a spokesperson for “Dernière Rénovation” told AFP.
On Sunday, however, activists managed to spray paint the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin’s most famous monument, to call for accelerating the exit from fossil fuels and better combating global warming. The cleaning of the door, built at the end of the 18th century, is not finished, a specific product must be applied to eliminate the colored particles on the sandstone blocks that make up the building.
It is this symbol of reunified Germany that Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, 38, hopes to cross first on Sunday, who has already broken the world record twice, in 2018 and 2022. “We hope that nothing untoward happens will happen in terms of demonstrations, but we have plans to deal with such eventualities,” commented Jürgen Lock, general director of the marathon, on Friday at a press conference.
Organizers and Berlin police are working together “to ensure the smooth running of the race,” he added, calling on “anyone intending to demonstrate not to directly interfere with the event.” Controversial, ecological actions known as “civil disobedience” have increased in recent years, particularly targeting sporting events.
The members of “Last Generation” have on several occasions stuck their hands on the asphalt of major avenues to interrupt traffic or projected different substances onto paintings in museums. In July, they seriously disrupted air traffic at the German airports of Hamburg and Düsseldorf by sticking their hands on the tarmac.