Their action caused major traffic disruptions. Climate activists from the Last Generation (Letzte Generation) movement blocked the runways at German airports in Hamburg and Düsseldorf on Thursday morning July 13. “They are protesting against the government’s lack of planning (…) against the climate crisis,” the movement said in a statement. Activists glued their hands to the tarmac. Düsseldorf and Hamburg airports are respectively the fourth and fifth largest in Germany.
In Hamburg, traffic was suspended between 6:10 a.m. and 9:50 a.m. after a “police operation” that dislodged the activists, the airport management company said in a statement, adding that “17 take-offs and 19 landings [had] been cancelled”. At Dusseldorf Airport, many flights are expected to experience “delays” due to “several unauthorized persons entering the tarmac”, according to a message posted on its website.
Hundreds of ongoing legal proceedings
The environmental collective Last Generation is currently the most active in Germany. He has drawn attention in recent months for his actions of civil disobedience, intended to push the government to step up the fight against climate change. Its members have on several occasions stuck their hands on the asphalt of major roads in order to interrupt traffic, or projected different substances on paintings exhibited in museums.
Hundreds of legal proceedings are already underway for these actions, considered to constitute disturbances to public order and denounced by the government of Olaf Scholz. Recently, the Heilbronn court sentenced three activists to five, four and three months in prison. At the end of May, extensive searches were carried out throughout the country against members of the collective, provoking protests and sometimes demonstrations in environmental circles.