Last Generation. Next generation of ruling coalition Green Party?

Lee Heidhues 5.25.2023

Last Generation could be called the next Generation of the Green Party. It needs to be remembered that the Greens got their start in Germany in the early 1980’s as anti-nuclear activists.

The German climate activists Last Generation are undaunted after a series of raids by police and being labeled a Criminal Organization.

In Germany much of the public, while being inconvenienced by their street actions, is generally supportive of their mission to fight climate change.

Now the Green Party is part of the ruling government coalition. It will be interesting to find out how the Green Party responds to the Last Generation.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 5.25.2023

Green Party legal expert Helge Limburg told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) that the “blanket assumption” of labeling the group Last Generation as criminal as a whole was legally dubious.

**Undaunted.** **Last Generation on the march in Berlin**

The group appeared defiant a day after police raids, launching a new website and rerouting their crowdfunding via a different organization. Labeling the group as possibly criminal also triggered a political debate.

Last Generation, or Letzte Generation, the group raising climate awareness using often controversial protest methods in Germany, continued to collect funds and call for protests on Thursday, a day after raids against members suspected of helping finance a criminal enterprise.

The group, whose website was blocked amid the raid, launched a new website with the domain .org, instead of the German .de domain. It also continued to rally for protests on its Twitter account.

The raids have sparked a political debate across Germany’s spectrum, with some Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politicians staunchly supporting the legal action, and others opposing the group’s “criminal” classification.

The decision follows near-daily protests and demonstrations around Germany, particularly in Berlin in recent months, for the most part seeking to disrupt traffic and roads. The group says it is doing this to raise awareness on climate issues; its critics allege that it’s annoying ordinary people and regularly wasting police time and resources.

When blocking Last Generation’s official website on the .de domain, German authorities briefly redirected the website to a Bavarian police page which classified the group as a “criminal organization.”