Berliners – and the city’s many tourists – woke up to a sign hung conspicuously over the Brandenburg Gate, perhaps the capital’s most famous landmark.
“Letzte Generation” or “Last Generation” activists scaled the gate to unravel the message, which read “we wish for survival for all.”
The group then tweeted out a video, saying “it is all our decision: do we want to live or die together?”
The word “together” is also deliberate, with activists having specifically chosen the anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall to campaign for support.
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++ We are at the Brandenburg Gate ++
On the day the wall fell, we ask for cohesion:
“We wish for survival for all.”
We all are them #LastGen.It is the decision of all of us: Do we want to live together or die? pic.twitter.com/hImcwjGplS
— Last Generation (@uprisingLastGen) November 9, 2022
Police arrived on scene a short time later.
Meanwhile, the group is demanding negotiations with senior members of the German government tomorrow on climate measures such as a speed limit on the German Autobahn and a nationwide €9 public transport ticket.
It says it will continue to protest if politicians don’t meet to negotiate.
Recently, Last Generation have courted controversy after activists threw potatoes on a Monet painting in Potsdam’s Barberini Museum and have repeatedly blocked important streets.
In one case, a protest caused a traffic jam that held up an ambulance responding to an accident where a cyclist later died.
Vocabulary
Climate activists – (those) Climatetivists
Climate emergency – (der) Klimanotstand
Blockade (noun) or to blockade (verb) – (die) Blockade/blockaden
To climb
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