“If this unilateral escalation continues, it will end bitterly.”
We are surprised that Robert H., a contact cop, so realistically assesses the current tactics of the police. Because with “unilateral escalation” he can only have meant this. This quote is from the evening of August 25th, so it’s one week old. The first part of this text is just as old. The events of the last week, however, confirmed many times the statement “If this unilateral escalation continues, it will end bitterly.”.
On Wednesday, 8/22, a minibus was checked, the police approached the car only with their firearms aiming from only a few meters away on the heads of the people involved, as well as on passengers of another stopped car.
Two days later, there was a major police operation in the forest. Only one day later, the police returned, under the pretext of wanting to remove an art installation of fire extinguishers within hours after their discovery. This is remarkable, because in the spring they took note over many weeks of a very similar installation with just one fire extinguisher, but ignored it.
The operation was announced by Robert H. by saying “some officers” would come into the forest. With “some officers” he obviously means several hundred, because a police operation with less than 3-4 hundreds seems to be impossible. One and a half hours after they retreated early in the evening, they moved back in and surrounded the tree houses, while at the same time others filmed the meadow.
Meanwhile, a loudspeaker car drove up at Lollytrap (eastern entrance of the forest), just to play the Ride of the Valkyries and chainsaw noises once and then drive off again.
Remark: Hitler was known to be a great Wagner fanatic. The Valkyrie Ride was one of his favorite pieces. In the German weekly newsreel (Deutsche Wochenschau) on May 30, 1941, the Valkyrie Ride was played as background music to recordings of the airborne battle over Crete, as well as to the report of the bombing of the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway line. Coincidence?
One day later the same game. Several hundreds besiege tree houses in the west of the forest because they apparently could not complete on Saturday. Some of them seem to be enjoying spraying pepper spray on activists’ toilet paper, others are destroying paths out of boredom (so much for the “escape routes”) and soil structures.
The walk to the prison in Cologne-Ossendorf, where UPIII (Samantha) has been sitting since March (and according to judgment until just before Christmas) because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, is completely arrested.
Monday morning, the meadow is completely surrounded, for several hours people can not go to the toilet, because members of parliament and government officials want to look at the forest.
In Chemnitz, the police are completely overrun by Nazis on the same evening, who hunt down anyone who does not look German enough or whose opinion does not suit them. Tuesday morning we know why: just as many police as in Chemnitz faced thousands of Nazis storm the meadow, where 40 people are found. For every activist came almost 15 cops. Allegedly, they were searching for Molotov cocktails, but they preferred to destroy buildings, arbitrarily taking away phones, legal defense documents, ID cards, canisters, timber and heating wood, all tools, but also e.g. stuff for knitting, soap and two full beer crates.
Since Friday, the police have been checking every one who is leaving Buir towards the north, where the forest is. At times, water was not allowed to be taken, mostly climbing equipment and tools of all kinds are seized. Only after hours of discussion on several days (because “brushes can also be used as spears.”!), two artists finally were allowed to take their approx. 1000 Euros expensive painting equipment into the forest. The repression thus reached a new level of ridicule.
In the Hambi things seem to be normal, for which the Saxon police was rightly reprimanded by their superiors.
The statement of the police that “things of daily needs” may be taken into the forest, is probably interpreted as “what cops use every day”. However, in the armoury of the police we would probably not walk very far…
The police even trample on the right of assembly, which is above the police law, by searching people on the way to the registered vigil and even at the vigil itself.
I think it’s clear who is escalating here unilaterally.