MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

German streets crowded with demonstrations against vaccines

“Impfung macht frei” (vaccination will set you free), paraphrasing Auschwitz's entrance

Ordinary citizens opposing anticovid measures and mandatory vaccination were mixed with neo-nazi groups and members of the far-right “identity movement” during Sunday's protests which garnered some 12,000 demonstrators in the German city of Nuremberg against the Governments sanitary decisions which compromise individual liberties.

According to Bavarian radio-television BR, protesters of all ages and even families with children marched through the southern part of the city with posters and banners with slogans such as “Obligation to think instead of getting vaccinated,” or “We resist” or “Vaccination will make you free,” in reference to the sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp (Arbeit Macht Frei, “work will make you free”).

Around 2,500 people also attended a rally called by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Nuremberg, in which the head of the parliamentary group, Alice Weidel, also spoke.

And another 2,000 people gathered in a counter-demonstration organized by the “Alliance against the extreme right,” where Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann warned that the border between COVID-19 deniers and the far right was increasingly blurred.

Nuremberg Mayor Markus König called on citizens to defend a stable democracy that requires “committed, informed, awake and active democrats.”

All protests took place in a quiet tone. There were no arrests reported.

Meanwhile, thousands marched Saturday through the streets of Schwerin and Hamburg against the mandatory vaccine.

Mecklenburg-Antepomerania Governor Manuela Schweisge did not rule out in a Twitter posting additional restrictions against the spread of the Omicron variant, already detected in that region. She also called for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“Although infections are decreasing slightly at present, we are facing the threat of a fifth wave with omicron. That is why we cannot relax the measures. We have to protect ourselves with the booster vaccine and expect that there will be additional restrictions,” she wrote.