One of the ways in which protesters have attempted to avoid having their events shut down by the police is to pretend that their marches are nothing more than casual ‘walks’ they take together. Parents have also brought young children along to prevent the police from using excessive force. But in many cases, things escalate anyway: this week in the Bavarian city of Schweinfurt, a four-year-old boy was pepper sprayed in his pushchair after he was taken to an anti-lockdown protest. Earlier this month, at a gathering in the Saxonian village of Pausa, one protester tried to pull a policewoman’s gun away from her.

The protests show no sign of quietening down as Germany braces itself for an Omicron wave. On Wednesday in Munich, 5,000 people marched through the streets. The organisers tried to mask the gatherings as shopping trips; one of those co-ordinating the event wrote in a Telegram chat: ‘You have something to do in Munich today? Then pay attention to other shoppers.’ Protesters were advised to carry shopping receipts to show suspicious police officers. Authorities in Munich had enforced tight Corona-related restrictions beforehand, making it impossible for protesters to form a large rally. ‘These regulations serve the purpose of preventing an uncontrolled growth of unreasonable demonstrations with partly violent participants and where distancing and the wearing of face masks is ignored,’ the city stated. Participants could be punished with fines of up to £2,500. But this did little to deter protesters from gathering in huge numbers.