Days after Irish critics of Michael D Higgins accused the president of talking hot air over neutrality, left-wing Berliners embraced 1980s pop star Nena – and a large tank of helium – to protest against Nato exercises in German airspace.
Shortly after 4pm on Wednesday, a sweating group of 80 protesters released “approximately” 99 coloured balloons into the sticky midsummer air over Berlin’s alternative Kreuzberg district, a nod to Nena’s 1983 chart hit, 99 Red Balloons.
At the height of the Cold War, the song warned how even harmless balloons could see the “war machine spring to life” and lead nameless defence ministers to cheer: “This is what we’ve waited for/This is it, boys, this is war.”
Some 40 years later, and 16 months after Russia invaded Ukraine, German skies are now hosting the largest joint air defence exercise in Nato history.
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For the past 10 days, 10,000 military personnel and 250 aircraft from 25 Nato member states have participated in the exercise, code-named Defender 23 which is aimed at “optimising and expanding co-operation among participating nations”.
The Kreuzberg protest, supported by Germany’s opposition Left Party, was designed to disrupt the exercises – and the “dominating countries of the world who are relying on aggression”.
“Instead of pushing for a real peace initiative to end the murderous slaughter in Ukraine, the federal government prefers to host the largest Nato manoeuvre since 1945,” the organisation said in the protest flyer.
Around the central protest tent, where a DJ played loud dance music, protesters held signs reading No to Putin, No to Nato and Diplomacy instead of arms deliveries: neutrality for Germany.
Event organiser Arian Wendel claimed Germany was trapped in a military vicious circle and a “proxy war between two murderous blocs”.
“For us, Nato and Russia are two sides of the same coin,” he said.
Asked what his proposal is for ending the war, he said: “In the interests of the civilian population of Ukraine, the Zelenskiy regime should capitulate, form a government in exile and start a guerrilla war in Ukraine to end the illegal Russian occupation.”
In a blow to the protest – and Nena fans – a spokesman for Germany’s defence ministry said that “our experience is that balloons do not reach altitudes in which we are exercising, this will not affect us”.
