German Government Condemns Right-Wing Protesters Who Rushed Parliament Building

The German government on Monday condemned right-wing protesters who attempted to break into the federal parliament building in Berlin over the weekend. The agitators stormed the building, known as the Reichstag, on Saturday evening amid demonstrations against the country’s coronavirus restrictions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert called the scenes at the Reichstag “shameful.” He described the demonstrators as “anti-democrats.”

"The scenes of this weekend's demonstration should not obscure the fact that the vast majority of people in Germany think and act differently than the demonstrators in Berlin," Seibert said. "That is why Germany has made it through the pandemic so far."

Other important political figures also condemned the scene at the Reichstag.

"We will not tolerate any anti-democratic vilification of the Federal Republic of Germany," German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. "The violent riots on Saturday again made clear that right-wing extremism has deep roots in our society."

On Sunday, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer called the incident “unacceptable.”

"The Reichstag building is the seat of our Parliament and thus the symbolic center of our liberal democracy,” Seehofer told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "The fact that sowers of chaos and extremists are abusing it for their own purposes is unacceptable."

The scene drew comparisons to an arson attack on the Reichstag in February 1933. The Reichstag fire occurred just four weeks before Adolf Hitler became the chancellor.

Roughly 38,000 people gathered in the German capital to protest against restrictions due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Germans are required to wear masks on public transport and in shops, with violators being fined and events that don't guarantee social distancing have been prohibited.

Coronavirus cases have been exploding in Germany, with German citizens being advised to stop traveling to high-risk countries in order to prevent the spread of infection.

“It has turned out that a disproportionately high number of travelers returning (from high-risk areas) tested positive,” Merkel told reporters last week.

As of Monday at 5 p.m. ET, Germany has over 244,800 COVID-19 cases and 9,300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.