A wide assortment of protesters, including pro-Palestinian protesters, anti-war protesters, and protesters from the right, targeted Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s Nuremberg campaign event with loud jeers yesterday.
The protests were so loud that she was barely able to deliver her speech over the din while speaking in the run-up to the EU parliamentary elections next week.
Baerbock is seen as one of the most pro-war ministers in the German government and has enthusiastically called for more weapons to be sent to Ukraine. The Green party was founded on anti-war principles and opposition to NATO but has also come under pressure from the left for its support for Israel in its war against Gaza, a conflict that is increasingly splitting the left in Germany. The Greens have been walking a tightrope as of late, with Economy Minister Robert Habeck increasingly critical of Israeli actions in Rafah.
Notably, Green party supporters are the most likely to back sending weapons to Ukraine but also the least likely to want to defend their own homeland in the case of an attack, according to polling.
RT, a pro-Russian state media network, also filmed a segment from the protest.
“The Greens have ruined everything, said an outraged man. It is absolutely wrong to destroy everything we have built up in the past,” said one man who was interviewed at the protest.
“Baerbock is a pro-war agitator, not a diplomat,” chanted another man.
The crowd protesting against Baerbock reportedly outnumbered the supporters who were there to see Baerbock speak, but there are no independent police figures about the size of the protest or Baerbock’s crowd size.
Notably, numerous pro-Palestinian and peace flags were seen at the protest, including women in headscarves mixed in with what appeared to be protesters from the anti-war German right and left, making for a highly diverse group standing against Baerbock’s policies.
Most recently, a week ago, Baerbock, who expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people, promised further aid to Ukraine.
Baerbock said Germany needs a security budget because of the war: “This means that we have to provide resources for Ukraine. The security of Poland and Germany is at stake,” she said.
At the beginning of May, at a meeting of Council of Europe foreign ministers in Strasbourg, she said that Ukraine also needed “weapons capable of medium and long-range defense.”
The German foreign minister also wrote a controversial opinion piece published on Euractiv on May 1, where she reminded Europeans that every generation has its own role to play. She said the current one is to fight Russia.
