Rallies in #Germany against sending #German troops, weapons and money to war against #Russia

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“Germany is serving as a puppet exclusively for American interests and those of Nato,” the first orator warned to the hundreds-strong crowd, a mix of students, families and pensioners. Some carried banners for the German left, some peace flags and some homemade signs drawing complex parallels between the nine-month war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic. As the anti-American rhetoric soared, the crowd applauded, jeered and whistled.

“The embargo policy against Russia has failed completely and is being directed catastrophically against ourselves,” the speaker continued, invoking the Holocaust and declaring the war in Ukraine a “paradise” for “warmongers, arms companies and profiteers”.

For several weeks every Monday evening — a nod to the regular protests in the 1980s against the Communist regime on that day in Leipzig — such rallies have taken place in dozens of towns and cities across eastern Germany.

Most are attended by a few hundred people, many by just dozens. But as with similar rallies elsewhere in central and eastern Europe, they point to a worrying trend for the region’s political mainstream.