She was part of the IAA blockade in Munich and the spectacular Barberini action in Potsdam, and she uses her legal knowledge to provide legal assistance to other activists. Then Mirjam Herrmann herself is convicted and decides to use her default imprisonment sentence to gain further experience and pass on her knowledge: How does it feel to go to prison for your political convictions? What forms of solidarity can be learned in prison? And is there any other way to deal with the threats of the unfolding climate crisis than to live a different, connected, unconditional life in the here and now?
As a defendant in a trial for forming a criminal organisation, Mirjam Herrmann is affected by a dangerous precedent at a time when nature and human rights are equally threatened. In an essay that poses the question of nature in a completely different way, she explains why she nevertheless repeatedly decides to resist: Nature is our shared habitat, which we must defend, but also nurture.
"Courage is overcoming fear through love."
Essay
Sample translation
Complete English translation available
Mirjam Herrmann, born in 1997, is a lawyer and climate activist. She studied law in Passau, London and Jerusalem. In 2021, she established the legal department of the climate protection group ‘Letzte Generation’ (Last Generation). She gained notoriety in 2022 through a public action: to draw attention to climate change, she threw mashed potatoes at a Monet painting in the Barberini Museum in Potsdam.
