Another peace rally in Berlin: is the ice breaking?

Almost a year ago, thousands of people gathered in a rainy Berlin to protest against the German government’s involvement in the war in Ukraine.

At the time, the crisis in the Left Party was in full swing and the break with Sahra Wagenknecht and her friends had become official. When the Left Party leadership decided to stay away from the rally, the demonstration was dominated by the not-yet-formed Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and its charismatic leader Sahra Wagenknecht.

This time, at the rally on 3 October, it was not quite so. Under the slogan “No more war – lay down your arms”, the demonstration at the Victory Column attracted not “thousands” but “tens of thousands” (the organisers spoke of at least 40,000 people). Wagenknecht was, of course, the most popular speaker, but this time the leader of the Left Party, Gesine Lötzsch, was also present. Organisations of Turkish origin also participated more intensively this time.

The date also seemed to have been specially chosen. 3 October is the ‘Day of German Unity’, the day when Germany was ‘united’, but in reality the German Democratic Republic was swallowed by the Federal Republic. In the 1990s there were fears that a reunited Germany would seek war, as it had done at least twice before in history. Berlin’s ‘turning point’ with the war in Ukraine seemed to confirm these fears.

Before the speeches began, rapper S. Castro summed up the main idea of the rally by singing a song with the lyrics ‘In Kiev we ignore the Hitler salute because our minds are banned’.

At the start of the rally, organiser Reiner Braun, a veteran of the German peace movement, called for an ‘end to the killing’ in Gaza and Lebanon.

Perhaps the most interesting moment of the rally came when SPD member of parliament Ralf Stegner took to the podium. The SPD is the largest member of Germany’s grand coalition and is seen as the party most responsible for the war policy in Ukraine. Although Stegner is considered a ‘dissident’ within his own party (which was the reason for his appearance at the rally), when he spoke about ‘Russia’s war of aggression’ and ‘Ukraine’s right to self-defence’ he was met with a storm of whistles and boos. Stegner claimed that Germany’s aid, including military aid, was ‘humanitarian’, but his speech was briefly interrupted by whistling. At this point the organising committee intervened and asked the crowd to let Stegner continue. Amid the jeers, the SPD politician claimed that his party remained part of the peace movement and called for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine.

Stegner could be said to be torn between two mosques. Before the rally, when it was announced that he would also be a speaker, he was attacked by the Greens and the SPD. The SPD politician had said the day before that the issue of peace ‘should not be left to parties like the BSW and AfD’.

Another surprise at the rally was the Bavarian conservative politician Peter Gauweiler. Speaking from the podium, Gauweiler of the CSU said it was the first time in his life he had attended a peace rally. In a speech that at times drew laughter from the crowd, the CSU politician also greeted his ‘old friend Oskar Lafontaine’ and argued that when it comes to arms deliveries to Kiev, ‘you can’t put out a fire with petrol’.

The much-anticipated Wagenknecht, on the other hand, spoke with the confidence of someone who has become a leader of the peace movement. He said he had ‘great respect’ for the booing SPD Stegner, but stressed that the SPD leadership, Olaf Scholz and Boris Pistorius were no longer part of the peace movement. The Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was ‘a security risk for Germany’ and people like her were dragging the country further and further into war.

Anyone who started a war for them was guilty, she said, adding: ‘But please, no double standards. If Putin is a criminal, what about the US politicians who have been responsible for so many wars in recent years? The BSW leader was also almost alone in criticising the planned deployment of American intermediate-range missiles in Germany.

At the end of her speech, Wagenknecht quoted the author Erich Maria Remarque: “I always thought that everyone was against the war, until I learned that there are those who are for it, especially those who don’t have to go”.

Wagenknecht’s quote refers to politicians from the ‘traffic light’ coalition, such as the Greens’ Anton Hofreiter and the FDP’s Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann. Wagenknecht points out that these are ‘warmongers’ who should form a battalion and prove themselves in battle.

And then the thicker and thicker strands of German politics are hit. Last year I wrote about the caution on the Palestinian issue. This year there were plenty of Palestinian and Lebanese flags in the crowd (and the odd Russian flag), but there was little difference in the political context.

On the Middle East, for example, Wagenknecht said it was ‘inhuman to applaud when Iran fires rockets at Israel’. However, he said the debate lacked empathy for the ‘Palestinian victims’, adding: “Terrorists cannot be stopped by terror and war”.

Some other BSW politicians, calling for a halt to German arms supplies to Israel and an immediate ceasefire, also feel the need to begin their remarks with ‘Hamas terror’.

For Germany, Israel is an absolute reality whose existence cannot even be questioned, justified by its role in the Holocaust. Israel exists as the child of German guilt, to the extent that for a German the possible destruction of Israel is more important than the possible destruction of Germany. In the words of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, support for Israel is declared to be Germany’s state mission, the wisdom of the German state, its raison d’être.

However, it should not be assumed that the participants in the rally were all on the same wavelength. For example, according to Deutsche Welle, ‘some isolated members of the demonstration’ carried banners accusing NATO of genocide in eastern Ukraine and Israel of genocide in Gaza. As the heavyweights left the rally after Wagenknecht and the crowd began to disperse, Salah Abdel-Shafi, the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Vienna, took to the podium and said that Israel had been committing genocide for a year and that the world had remained silent.

Then Iris Hefets of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, a supporter of the BDS movement, and activist Nadija Samour spoke together. Hefets said Israel was committing genocide in Palestine with the support of Germany.

Nevertheless, it can be said that the peace movement in Germany is gaining momentum and has shaken off some of its dead wood. Although no major cracks have yet appeared in mainstream politics, the politicians we spoke to believe that the outcome of September’s state elections in East Germany could change Berlin. The 3 October rally was well attended, and the fact that some people from the Left Party, even the SPD and CSU, joined the demonstration may be a small indication of this.

The prospect of early federal elections also depends in part on this. Before the budget for 2025 is presented to the Bundestag in November, we will know whether the death knell has been sounded for the SPD-Green coalition, which was soundly defeated in the state elections. Nevertheless, it is clear that Germany is entering a period in which at least ‘some things will change’ in order to ‘keep things the same’.