Day X, Part 5: Defensive Democracy

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, we get answers on just how bad the problem of far-right infiltration in the German military and police really is — and how Germany is trying to address it. We learn about Germany's "defensive democracy," which was designed after World War II to protect the country against threats from the inside. One of those threats, according to some German officials, is the Alternative for Germany, widely known by its German initials AfD. We meet intelligence officials who have put parts of the party under formal surveillance.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Today, Episode 5 of our series, Day X.
0:23.7	A year and a half into my reporting, in late August 2020, tens of thousands of people
0:31.1	flooded the streets of Berlin.
0:34.4	Protesting, the government's coronavirus lockdown measures.
0:39.2	There were anti-vaxxers, QAnon followers, several thousand members of the far-right
0:46.1	scene.
0:50.0	Some of these groups had been chatting on telegram, calling for a storm on Berlin, and posting
0:55.1	images of themselves with their weapons.
0:59.0	And as the day went on, a few hundred of them gathered directly in front of Germany's
1:04.2	parliament building, the Reichstag.
1:10.9	Most of them were white men, many of them from far-right groups.
1:15.9	They were waving the old black, white and red flag of the German Empire that once inspired
1:21.2	the Nazis, and it's now become the flag of choice for neo-Nazis because the swastika
1:26.9	is banned.
1:30.4	And it's that evening, hours into the protest, when a woman got up on stage in front of
1:36.5	the Capitol and told the crowd, we are writing history in Berlin here today.
1:44.4	There are no more police.
1:48.0	We have one.
1:51.0	The crowd went wild.
1:54.3	And just like that, they headed straight for the Reichstag.
2:01.0	Shouting things like, Bideschtand, resistance, and, via Zintasvok, we are the people.
2:09.6	They broke through the police barrier and ran up the main stairs.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.