Coronavirus: Germany's Growing Anti-Lockdown Movement: 'Day Of Freedom'
'Coronavirus: Germany's growing anti-lockdown movement.' Germany is seeing growing protests against the government for its handling of the pandemic. Who are these people and why are they taking to the streets? DW, Aug. 5, 2020.
It was a curious sight to behold. On August 1, a motley crowd of protesters from across Germany — ranging from far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists to supporters of the anti-vaccination movement and followers of esotericism — flocked to Berlin to vent their anger at government-imposed restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus. In front of the city's iconic Brandenburg Gate, people shouted "we're the second wave" and "resistance." According to the police, some 20,000 protesters converged on the capital that Saturday.
The event had been organized by a controversial Stuttgart-based organization known to have staged the country's largest anti-coronavirus lockdown protests so far. That day's theme — "Tag der Freiheit," or "Day of Freedom" — was eerily reminiscent of the title of a 1935 Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl.
Shared loathing of the government: Protester were seen waving Germany's Imperial War Flag, a favorite with far-right extremists and members of the Reichsbürger, or Reich Citizens' Movement, both of whom reject Germany's present-day political order. Yet among the crowd were also people waving peace and rainbow flags, as well those with placards reading "Jesus Lives!"
- Railing against Angela Merkel and Bill Gates: It was clear from some of the protesters' placards that they do not believe the coronavirus exists. Instead, many are convinced the virus is a pretext fabricated by the government to turn Germany into a dictatorship. Some of the protesters were seen wearing Nazi-era Stars of David on their chests that read "not vaccinated." They were drawing a parallel to Jews in Nazi Germany, casting themselves as a persecuted people living under a dictatorship that imposes "vaccination fascism." Some were seen and heard lambasting Chancellor Angela Merkel, high-profile German virologist Christian Drosten and German Health Minister Jens Spahn as "appeasement politicians."
Many marchers held signs reading "don't give Gates a chance," a riff on a slogan popularized years ago in the fight against AIDS but tweaked to target Microsoft founder Bill Gates. These protesters are convinced that the billionaire tech entrepreneur is out to vaccinate people against their will and plant microchips in their bodies.
- Read more: In Germany, vaccine fears spark conspiracy theories: Many of these conspiracy theorists have a common enemy: the German state, Bill Gates and a "Zionist global conspiracy." They often refer to one another when promoting their ideas, building on each other's crude theories...
More, https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germanys-growing-anti-lockdown-movement/a-54456654
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- Watch: *DAY OF FREEDOM*: OUR ARMED FORCES, BY L. RIEFENSTAHL, GERMAN WEHRMACHT DOCUMENTARY. 1935.
'A Cinematic Genius and Hitler's Favorite, The Dark Genius Of Leni Riefenstahl,' The Telegraph, 2016.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/race/dark-genius-of-leni-riefenstahl/
.. Leni Riefenstahl, who directed the film of the 1936 Olympics, had an extraordinary life. Starting as a ballet dancer and star of Germany’s popular mountain films, she directed The Victory of Faith and Triumph of the Will at the Nazi Party rallies of 1933 and 1934, along with a short film about the German armed forces at Nuremberg in 1935, Day of Freedom.
Her films were widely hailed as brilliant, technically innovative advances in the art of film-making. She thus became known as Hitler’s chief cinematic propagandist. Artistically she is a genius, and politically she is a nitwit. Liam O’Leary, film historian. Riefenstahl lived to 101, and her restless talent led in many directions – producer, writer, editor, photographer. Yet she spent decades trying to shake off the shadow of her work for the Nazis.
Her fateful link to Hitler began in 1932 at an election rally. She was overwhelmed by his oratory, describing the experience in a memoir: “It seemed as if the Earth's surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth.” She dashed off a letter to the Nazi paper, Völkischer Beobachter, expressing a desire to meet him. The following year a meeting took place and they got on well. She accepted an offer to film the 1933 Nuremberg rally and – reluctantly – its successor, attended by up to a million Germans.
Her relationship with Hitler lasted 12 years, provoking questions about its level of intimacy, and she became close to propaganda minister Josef Goebbels and his wife, Magda. Hitler in Triumph of the Will...
