Four observations:
First, maybe in a handful of cities....it gets up into several thousand to 10,000, but in the vast number of non-metro locations....these protests consist of maybe 300 to 500 folks (in some cases, even into the dozens).
Second, most people would not even be aware of these protests....if public TV (Channel One/Two) didn't cover them. When they do cover them....there's always an attempt to interview people, and 90-percent refuse to talk to the public TV news crowd.....even in some cases....uttering the phrase 'lying press'. The public press then includes the refusal request, and includes the chatter of 'lying press' in the finished product you watch. If public news just quit sending crews out.....the fascination among politicians or regular people watching....might end in a brief period.
Third, politicians and political news analysts believe every single anti-Covid protests needs to be 'cancelled' or hindered. 'Nothing good of this can come' is the quote that I'd inject into this. The suggestion is continually put into reports that while the majority of these are peaceful.....there is 'turmoil brewing'. You (as the viewer) are then left to wonder.....where is the turmoil, and how would a regular person (just out for a walk) notice such turmoil?
Fourth, if there is worry or turmoil going on with this crowd....you have to wonder if the politicians feel the same way about the 'Fridays for the Future' crowd, or the environmental folks, or the anti-capitalists out of Hamburg.
The Germans have a short paragraph in the Constitution which basically says you always have the right to protest, but it has to be 'organized'. This tends to mean.....some guy applies for a protest-parade and says 750 people will walk from x-point in the city to y-point (usually a 30 minute walk). Cops get the request.....then in most cases (unless there's five or six requests for the same day/time), they approve it.
Then the cops provide a escort. I've stood and watched probably ten protests in my life and at a minimum.....there's usually ten police folks to manage the lesser episodes. On a couple of these.....there might have been a hundred police trying to maintain an orderly protest parade.
As for these anti-ban-rule protests getting participants hyped-up? Well....it's the same way if 25,000 showed up for a soccer game, or 5,000 folks showed up for a heavy-metal concert, or 1,000 screaming juveniles showed up on a Friday protests for Greta's cause. All of these lead to people being hyped-up.
In the end......you allow the protests to occur, which gives some hype for ARD/ZDF to cover and suggest a violent trend will occur, which hypes up the political folks a good bit to say 'we will not be intimidated' and then give some rambling 9-minute interview for the nightly press to cover. One feeds another, then feeds another, and then another. Yeah, it's as silly as it sounds.
As for the question....how many protest movements now exist in Germany....across the sixteen states? If you started counting....using everything from the past five years, I'd take a guess that over fifty different protest movements exist. Some are regional....some are just within a city itself.....a few have become national in nature.
On my Brown-shirt or RAF 'index' (comparing against the 1920/1930s or 1970s).....anything rising above a three? No. Other than this one shooting of the politician up in Kassel from a couple of years ago....it's nothing that dramatic other than verbal threats being made occasionally. I do agree....lot of screaming going on with the protest folks....non-compliance with the police...etc.
Adding to this mess.....who leads the crowd? That's a funny thing...it's related to social media, and I'd just say that it looks like a 'figurehead' guy, and that he has some non-German giving him ideas/suggestions. So, you have a large group of people who want to believe in something, and some non-German segment giving them directions. All makes for chaos in the end.
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