Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Germany on Sunday, January 14, following the revelation of a plan for the mass expulsion of people of foreign origin drawn up by the far-right AfD, which is rising in the polls.
Nearly “10,000 demonstrators” marched through the streets of Potsdam, a city on the edge of Berlin, where AfD and neo-Nazi members met in late November to discuss the plan, police said Sunday. The Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock were also present at this meeting.
In Berlin, too, “thousands of people” gathered around the iconic Brandenburg Gate. Several thousand demonstrators also marched in other cities across the country.
These rallies were organized after revelations by the German investigative media Correctiv on Wednesday that members of the AfD discussed with neo-Nazis a plan to expel foreigners or people of foreign origin from Germany.
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Shockwave in the country
The co-founder of the Austrian Identity Movement (IBÖ), Martin Sellner, presented in particular a project to send up to two million people to North Africa – asylum seekers, foreigners and German citizens who would not be “assimilated”.
The AfD members present at the meeting included the personal representative of party leader Alice Weidel, Roland Hartwig, MP Gerrit Huy and the chairman of the AfD Saxony-Anhalt state parliamentary group, Ulrich Siegmund. according to the media.
These revelations sent a shock wave across the country, while the AfD is benefiting from favorable poll dynamics, with nationwide voting intentions of 21 to 23%. In the federal states of the former GDR such as Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, where crucial state elections will take place in the second half of the year, the party is even at over 30%.
Chancellor Scholz also warned on Saturday about “the extremists,” while the extreme right wanted to exploit social mobilizations, especially those of farmers.
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“When legitimate protests turn into anger or disrespect for democratic processes and institutions, we all lose. Only those who despise our democracy will benefit,” he warned.
Also read | In Germany, Olaf Scholz says he is concerned about the rise of extremism amid farmer mobilization fueled by the far right