On January 14th, 2023, during a demonstration against the destruction of Lützerath with between 15 and 35 thousand participants, several thousand protesters tried to reach the hamlet. The police – gathered from 14 out of 16 federal states of Germany – answered with massive violence against the protesters. During the eviction of the occupied structures in Lützerath, freedom of the press was violated several times by the police forces.
Over the last few years, the small village became a symbol of the German climate justice and anti-capitalism movement. Below the surface of the hamlet lies a huge lignite deposit. In the next seven years, RWE wants to expand the open pit mine and excavate the brown coal with permission and support of the government but against the will of the people who lived there and – according to some new polls – against the will of the German majority.