Day X · The New York Times

Day X, Part 5: Defensive Democracy

June 24, 2021·38 min·2 clips

Germany put the AfD under surveillance, a first in the postwar history of the Federal Republic.

The episode opens in Berlin in late August 2020. A year and a half into the reporting, the scene reads less like an oddity and more like a warning flare. Tens of thousands of people are in the streets protesting the government's coronavirus lockdown measures. Among them are anti-vaxxers, QAnon followers, and several thousand people from the far-right scene, some of whom have been organizing on Telegram and posting images of weapons. As the day goes on, a few hundred gather directly in front of the Reichstag. They wave the old black, white, and red flag of the German empire, a symbol now favored by neo-Nazis because the swastika is banned. A woman takes the stage in front of the capital. She tells the crowd that history is being written in Berlin and says there are no more police and that they have won. The crowd erupts immediately. It moves toward parliament shouting Widerstand and Wir sind das Volk. They break through the police barrier and run up the main stairs. At the top, some try to get inside the building. The episode then turns to Konstantin, who explains why the real danger lies in the attitude toward democratic institutions. He argues that democracy does not stop anti-democratic people from getting elected. He says they use democracy like a train, step out once they reach their goal, and then dance after they have stepped away from it. He calls that a form of infiltration. He ties that idea to the Nazi rise in the Weimar Republic. Hitler's party was elected, and only after it was in office did it abolish democracy. The lesson, he says, is that people should not be naive about where infiltration can happen. On the way out, Konstantin points to a swastika carved into the metal doors of the parliament elevator. He treats it as a symbolic attack on democracy. The perpetrator was never identified, but given the strict security in the building, there is a strong implication that whoever did it knew someone, or was someone, working inside parliament.

As heard by us

A Reichstag protest becomes a study of how democracy can be used against itself.

The episode tracks the late-August 2020 Berlin protests, when lockdown anger, anti-vaxxers, QAnon followers, and far-right groups converged at the Reichstag.

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Why you'd press play

You want a clear look at how a Berlin anti-lockdown protest turned into a direct test of parliament security and democratic resilience.

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