KLima activists from the Last Generation group blocked traffic at Potsdamer Platz in downtown Berlin on Saturday afternoon. Around 2:30 p.m., “around 30 people” gathered on the sidewalk and the road on Potsdamer Straße, according to a police spokeswoman. Five people initially stuck themselves on the street. “Traffic is completely stopped,” it said. Police forces tried to detach the blockers from the roadway.
The Last Generation group had announced the action in advance on their website. “It is long overdue for us citizens to get together and resist climate injustice here and around the world,” wrote spokeswoman Aimée van Baalen. Everyone can sit down, glue is provided.
In other German cities, too, climate activists followed the call of several initiatives on Saturday, such as Fridays for Future, Ende Gelände and Lützerath Leben. They demonstrated for the preservation of the occupied village of Lützerath in the Rhenish lignite mining area. According to the police, around 50 participants came to a rally in Cologne. Actions and information stands were announced in Berlin, Dresden, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Oberhausen and Stuttgart, among others. The climate activists want to prevent the decision to clear Lützerath.
In the hamlet on the edge of the lignite opencast mine near Erkelenz, which was abandoned by the former residents, around 100 opponents of coal live in tents, tree houses and squatted buildings. Land and houses belong to the energy company RWE. The responsible Arnsberg district government recently approved the new main operating plan for RWE’s opencast coal mine, which envisages the use and excavation of the village of Lützerath.
After a blockade at Munich Airport, seven climate activists were released from police custody on Saturday as planned. On Thursday last week, four men between the ages of 19 and 60 got stuck on a taxiway on the northern runway. Three women between the ages of 30 and 42 wanted to climb over a fence in the south of the airport, which was prevented.
After the action, the district court had ordered detention until December 17 because of the risk of repetition. After this period had expired, the seven activists were released from two prisons on Saturday afternoon, said the spokesman for the police headquarters in Upper Bavaria North, Michael Graf.
