A peace movement demonstration took place on Saturday in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, protesting the planned amendment to the German Constitution to strengthen the military. Sevim Dağdelen, a former member of the Bundestag for the Left, posted on X that “Today, at the peace demonstration in Berlin, with over 3,000 people at the Brandenburg Gate, against the constitutional amendment for rearmament and war preparedness. ‘Talk instead of rust!'”.
According to the Tagesspiegel, the number of participants was significantly lower, with around 1,000 attendees. The event was also attended by supporters and politicians of the Left Party, including Bundestag member Gesine Lötzsch, who accused the Greens of “self-deception” in her speech.
Lötzsch claimed that the Greens had boasted of having negotiated 100 billion euros for climate protection in their talks with the CDU and SPD. “Even in times of peace, the production of military equipment is an incredible waste of nature” she emphasized.
The Left Party politician also called it “dangerous propaganda” that rearmament would protect against war through deterrence. The plan of the CDU, SPD and Greens to exempt high defense expenditures from the debt brake through a constitutional amendment was described as a “crime against the future”.
The Left Party will have 28 members vote against the blank check and rearmament on Tuesday, Lötzsch promised and added that they had tried to prevent the vote but the Constitutional Court had ruled otherwise.
However, the Left Party had previously refused to support the AfD’s demand for an immediate convening of the newly elected Bundestag. “We as the Left Party do not work together with the AfD, neither in this nor in any other matter” said the parliamentary group’s leader, Christian Görke, on Sunday in Berlin, as reported by the Berliner Zeitung. Furthermore, there is no legal basis for the AfD’s action, according to Görke.