In July, "once-in-a-century" flash flooding killed nearly 200 people in western Germany and left 30,000 homeless, or without basic services, such as water and electricity. In the aftermath, a retired army colonel and leading figure in the country’s Querdenken anti-lockdown movement, named Maximillian Eder, announced that he was going to visit Ahrweiler, one of the worst-hit areas in the country. 

On a YouTube livestream by the group “Honk for Hope,” which had previously organized buses to anti-lockdown protests in cities across Germany, Eder called for a “unit” of like-minded individuals to ride down to the flooded area and work at a Querdenken stall to hand out food, flashlights and other “everyday necessities” to individuals affected by the disaster. He said that the local council was “letting people down terribly,” because it had rejected his offer to coordinate all rescue operations.

Shortly before, Eder, who lives in the southern state of Bavaria, had appeared at an anti-lockdown protest in Berlin, calling for a military coup. In his YouTube stream, he wore his old uniform. “If I arrive somewhere in jeans, I have to explain who I am,” he said. A doctor named Bodo Schiffmann, who regularly tells his 140,000 Telegram followers that most people who get vaccines will die and compares healthcare professionals to the mass-murderers of Nazi Germany, appeared in the same broadcast, promising “to get non-bureaucratic help directly to flood victims.” 

The floods, which occurred after two months’ worth of rain poured down on western Germany in just two days, killed 141 people in Ahrweiler alone. German prosecutors have launched an investigation against the conservative head of the district, Jürgen Pföhler, on grounds of “negligent homicide.” They allege that he failed to adequately warn and evacuate residents who lived near the River Ahr, which broke its banks, destroying bridges, roads and homes and injuring hundreds of people.