Berlin firefighters warn of facility-related vaccination requirements. It applies to members of the Berlin fire brigade as well as to nursing staff. Anyone who cannot prove that they have been fully vaccinated by mid-March will be reported to the health department. One consequence for those affected who have not been vaccinated can be consequences under labor law. State fire director Karsten Homrighausen then reported all of them in a letter. Around 450 firefighters have now written a letter in which they sharply criticize the planned vaccination requirement within the authority. They ask for the suspension. The fire brigade warns that the compulsory vaccination in Berlin “from March 16, 2022 will lead to a dramatic and unmanageable security situation.”

The letter in full:

“Dear members of the Berlin House of Representatives, dear ladies and gentlemen of the Senate Department for the Interior, dear authority management of the Berlin fire brigade, due to the current developments we feel compelled to call on you with this dramatic appeal to use all your strength to to suspend the implementation of the so-called institution-related vaccination obligation. We are over 450 colleagues from all areas and careers of the Berlin Fire Department.

For years we have been committed to serving the citizens of this city in the control center, in the rear areas, in the fire service, in the rescue service and in the administration of the Berlin fire brigade. We are vaccinated against known diseases. In addition, some of us have been vaccinated against Covid-19 of our own free will and partly “boostered” as well as for the most part – also of our own free choice – not vaccinated. In view of the letter from the management of the Berlin fire brigade dated December 23, 2021, we see the emerging result of the implementation of the facility-related compulsory vaccination for the safety of all citizens of this city with deeper concern.

Should the consequences instigated by the management of the authorities occur, the security of the city is in our estimation massively endangered. According to the interpretation communicated to the authority, a large number of us WILL suddenly no longer be available and will no longer be allowed to perform the service as usual. As already announced in our #BerlinBrennt campaign, the personnel situation was already strained to the breaking point long before the current crisis and, in our opinion, would lead to a dramatic and unmanageable security situation if we were to stop working on March 16, 2022.

In addition to the associated burdens on our own personal situation, we would then be close to despair if our job of “helping” was forbidden and thus forced to leave parts of the population to its own devices. As a result of the increasingly obvious findings that a vaccination does not protect against infection with a Covid-19 disease or even rudimentarily prevent infection of other people in a pandemic-relevant manner, in our opinion such a deeper encroachment on the right to physical integrity is out of the question of the emergency services categorically.

It cannot be conveyed to us that the vaccines available so far are allowed to fall short of the promises rumored, but at the same time all red lines are crossed, which were knowingly drawn in the knowledge of our country’s internalized past. Together with many citizens of this city, we have in the past few weeks, partly openly recognizable as firefighters, to refrain from the consequences of negative information and appeals under these conditions from the madness of implementing the facility-related compulsory vaccination and the citizens of our city from the greater disaster due to the duration to keep security.

It would be a sin for us to remain silent and not point it out to them. Vaccination must remain voluntary to protect everyone. Your dedicated firefighters.

Response agreed between recipients is requested by February 21, 2022.”