Germany's lower house of parliament has beefed up security — several days after protesters prompted an evacuation of the US Congress as it met to confirm Joe Biden as president-elect.
Bundestag President Wolfgang Schaeuble informed Bundestag members in a letter, quoted by Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
“Berlin state police have arranged for a reinforcement of their forces around the Reichstag building,” the seat of the Bundestag, Schaeuble wrote.
The speaker has also reportedly asked the Foreign Ministry for a report on Wednesday's protests at the US Capitol building in Washington DC, to “clarify with the federal government and the state of Berlin what conclusions should be drawn for Bundestag security”.
A Bundestag spokeswoman confirmed Schaeuble had written to MPs, but would not comment on the contents of the letter.
Tensions remain high in the US after several hundred people surrounded the seat of the US Congress and forced their way inside following a far-larger rally in support of US President Donald Trump's claims of ballot fraud in the November 3 presidential election.
Protester Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old US Air Force veteran, was shot by Capitol police on Wednesday while trying to climb through a broken internal window to get to the House of Representatives chamber. She later died in hospital.
A 42-year-old police officer, Brian Sicknick, also died in hospital after being injured during scuffles with protesters. Three other people died of "medical emergencies" during the day of mostly-peaceful protests. Three people, icluding self-styled "QAnon shaman" Jake Angeli, have so far been charged with disorder offences.
But Wednesday's events in Washington may not be the prime motive for ramping up security at the Bundestag.
During a protest against COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in late August, several hundred of the 38,000-strong crowd managed to barge past police into the building. Some carried the old imperial German Reichsflagge, used as a banner by the far-right Reichsbürger movement.
Then-Chancellor Adolph Hitler's Nazi government blamed the 1933 fire on the German Communist Party, and used it as a pretext to seize absolute power and overthrow the Weimar Republic, establishing the short-lived Third Reich. Before gaining power, Nazi MPs had staged disruptions on the Reichstag floor.
