Berlin – The tally sheet is getting longer. “Hunger strike” is written on the wooden sign in the protest tent camp at the Reichstag. 20 lines are scratched underneath on Sunday. On Monday there will be 21 days on which climate activists refuse to eat in order to persuade the Chancellor candidates Armin Laschet (CDU), Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Annalena Baerbock (Greens) to hold a public discussion about climate protection.
One of them is Rumen Grabow. At about 1.86 meters tall, he now weighs 57.6 kilos, as he says, before starvation began it was 67.8 kilos. “My bones are extremely painful, you just lie on bones,” he says. That is why he prefers to walk around the camp, thickly wrapped in a hat, gloves and wool socks, because he is cold even when the outside temperature is around 15 degrees. The cheeks look sunken in the 20-year-old from Greifswald, who still wants to continue.
And that, although the situation in the climate camp is getting more serious: On Saturday two starving people, Lina Eichler and Jacob Heinze, collapsed and were taken to the Charité by ambulance. While Heinze, who was already in the hospital, returned to the camp, Eichler broke off the action for medical reasons. Another activist got out for psychological reasons.
Now there are still five young men who continue to starve for the climate, including Rumen Grabow. Sitting in front of his tent, he drinks mint tea, the only thing he consumes besides water. In the morning, he says, it is mentally difficult for him to get up and get dressed, it takes a long time. But he still attends meetings where the activists discuss their actions. Also on Sunday. “Sometimes you are a little irritated that things are not going well,” says Grabow about the mood.
No answer from politics
It is above all the lack of a response from politics that frustrates her, says Hannah Lübbert, sitting next to him, who acts as the campaign’s press spokeswoman. “We have all been working full-time for 21 days, writing to politicians all day, giving interviews, talking to supporters,” says the 20-year-old, who coordinates a team of 20 people that has a whole tent full of transmission technology. Journalists keep dropping by, and in the morning a Japanese television team was standing in front of the camp.
Only with the chancellor candidates there has been no exchange for days. Just a joint statement: You would only be available for private one-on-one discussions after the election, not for a public debate before it. “They were able to agree on that,” says Lübbert.
Annalena Baerbock called at the beginning of the protest and tried, above all, to dissuade her from the hunger strike, as did the environmental organization Greenpeace. The activists met Olaf Scholz on Friday in Potsdam, where Eichler and Heinze had come for a question and answer session held by the SPD for young voters.
Scholz asked for a short talk after the event, which the activists filmed. After the consolation, Eichler and Heinzle “arrived at the camp completely exhausted,” says spokeswoman Lübbert. She says this frustration contributed to the breakdown the day after. “Lina collapsed in front of our eyes and fell to the ground, could no longer speak.”
Up to 50 days without solid food are possible
The starving people are regularly examined by a team of doctors and paramedics who measure their weight, pulse and blood pressure. Ambulances only come in an emergency. The activists have acquired medical knowledge, know that a healthy person can do without solid food for 40 to 50 days, that the psychological consequences are often worse, and they also have carers for this.
Rumen Grabow says he would also go to the hospital. “What do I have to lose with what is at stake in the global climate,” he says. For years he took to the streets, to demos, broke laws in cases of civil disobedience, “but it just wasn’t enough. I couldn’t take it psychologically. For me it is perfectly appropriate to go on a hunger strike ”.
“In the meantime we would stop if there was a conversation,” says spokeswoman Lübbert. “We have already responded to a smaller demand.” Originally, the strikers had also called for the introduction of a citizens’ council for environmental issues. The activists issued an ultimatum for an interview on Thursday. What happens if this does not happen is unclear.
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