LÜTZERATH, Germany — The fight for Lützerath was long, but the end, when it finally came, was quick.
In a matter of days this past week, more than 1,000 police officers cleared out the hundreds of climate activists who had sworn to protect the small village, once home to 90 people but no church, which was scheduled to be razed as part of a sprawling open-pit coal mine in western Germany.