Thousands Protest Against War in Germany

Hours after the United States unleashed its first salvo of cruise missiles against Saddam Hussein, thousands of school children across Germany skipped morning classes to join spontaneous demonstrations against the war.

In Berlin alone, more than 50,000 students rallied on the eastern Alexanderplatz square and marched toward the Brandenburg Gate. In Munich 6,000 students protested in front of the U.S. consulate with "War is a Crime" and "No War for Oil" banners. Police counted 10,000 youthful protesters in the southern city of Stuttgart, and more than 8,000 in the Baltic Sea port of Rostock.

The large student gatherings were the start of the German peace movement’s Day X, an event long-scheduled to coincide with the begin of any U.S. attack on Iraq. Nationwide peace organizers expected that more than 350 demonstrations would be held during the day, but by midday, police counted more than 12 separate protests in Berlin alone. The peace coalition has attracted a broad swathe of German society including trade unions, church groups and globalization opponents. Last month, hundreds of thousands of Germans took to the streets in an effort to stop the war.

German Police Tighten Security

In Berlin, police worried about the security of U.S. facilities in the German capital quickly moved to eliminate the first problem that emerged from the conflict. Officers discovered a bag lying inside the security ring set up around the U.S. Embassy. They immediately brought in a remotely controlled robot, which was used to blow up the bag about 7:15 a.m. Afterward, police determined that the bag contained only cement.

On Wednesday, German Interior Minister Otto Schily suggested that the war would increase the threat of terrorism in Germany. "The terror network al Qaida will mostly react to the war by increasing its terror activities and use it for propaganda purposes," Schily said in a television interview. "We also have to expect that there will be so-called spontaneous terrorists from the extremist, fundamentalist Islamic scene."

Police also increased security around the embassies of Britain and Spain, two leading U.S. allies in the war against Iraq. Prior to the war’s start the government of Gerhard Schröder stepped up its security force guarding U.S. facilities in the country from 2,500 soldiers to 3,700. Authorities also increased their security around Jewish facilities in the country. And federal border guards stepped their patrols at the Frankfurt International Airport, Europe's second largest airport.

A crisis management team of the German carrier Lufthansa altered the airline's schedule to avoid parts of the Middle East. On Wednesday, flights to Tel Aviv, Israel, and Damascus, Syria, were canceled in anticipation of the start of the war. On Thursday, the airline went a step further, canceling all flights to the Middle East through Friday.

Germany’s political leaders stressed two points in their initial reactions to the start of the war -- the world community must support the civilian population of Iraq and the United Nations remains a major player in world events.

Schröder pledges to help Iraqis

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder expressed his disappointment about the start of the conflict, saying that "the logic of war had won out over the chance of peace." As he has done throughout the international dispute over Iraq, Schröder once again pledged to keep German forces out of the war. He also promised to join the rebuilding of Iraq after the war ended. "Of course, Germany cannot stand on the sidelines when it is necessary to help people," he said.

The general secretary of Schröder's Social Democratic Party, Olaf Scholz, said in a television interview on Thursday morning that the start of war was dismaying.

But Scholz, like other German politicians, said the United Nations would remain the central authority in controlling international conflicts despite the United States' decision to launch the war without a U.N. mandate. "The United Nations will emerge from the conflict in a rather stronger position because everyone knows that without the United Nations nothing happens," Scholz said.