Et is Monday evening at 8:20 p.m. when the demonstration train comes to a standstill in front of Leipzig Central Station. The police have formed a chain, no one can get through. “Resistance” and “free the road” demand the demonstrators. When her wish is not heeded, verbal insults against the emergency services follow. But they remain stable. The resisters have to heave to the left, much to their annoyance. “Everything like it used to be here,” one of them gets upset. The phrase could also apply to their posters, which still show Merkel in convict clothes. Perhaps there is a lack of personnel for renewal, there are only around 150 people who have gathered here behind the right-wing extremist micro-party “Freie Sachsen”. Earlier at the rally there were twice as many. The rest has probably ended up with the left, which is moving through the center with around 3,000 people. The police must ensure that the two do not meet.
That worked before on Augustusplatz. In view of the forecasts, the police had set up barricades between the Gewandhaus and the opera, but they weren’t necessary. The square in front of the opera belongs to the left, whose Leipzig member of the Bundestag Sören Pellmann first mobilized under the motto “Hot Autumn”. The right-wing extremists “Freie Sachsen” joined in and even put Pellmann and Gregor Gysi on their list of speakers, which they were forbidden to do by a court. On Monday, however, they are the first to be on the field. Some wrote on posters “I’m not taking part anymore”, “Protest instead of freezing” and “End politics against your own people!” A man with a megaphone tries to fire up a chant, but hardly anyone agrees. There are simply too few people there.
