The land that gave us the Gestapo is illustrating its native son Karl Marx's dictum that historical phenomena appear two times: "first as tragedy, then as farce."  Perhaps panicking over Germany's record COVID case count (despite 68.1% of its population being fully vaccinated), the Polizei there have invited worldwide scorn and ridicule in recent days for their punctiliousness in enforcing arbitrary and mostly ineffective regulations supposedly aimed at inhibit the spread of the virus.

Although it happened last month, video of police arresting a Santa Claus at a Christmas market in Stralsund, a Hanseatic city on the Baltic coast, has just surfaced in American media.

On Saturday, worldwide attention was focused on police in Frankfurt pulling out measuring sticks to enforce social distancing:

Hessische Polizei Beamten gehen mit Zollstöcken durch die Menschenmenge in Frankfurt am 11.12.21 pic.twitter.com/1dkqehSnPt

— Sternenstaub (@wirsindsoviele) December 12, 2021

But ridiculous as these acts seem, they are no joke.  Tyranny is descending on many countries in the name of arresting a virus that is fatal to fewer than one percent of those who contract it, and that is mainly fatal to the elderly and those who have serious underlying conditions.

Photo credit: YouTube screen grab.