More than 1.4 million people have demonstrated in dozens of German cities since Friday, January 19, against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and its radical ideology, two of the organizations that called for this mobilization. “On Sunday alone, protests took place in around 40 cities, a clear signal against the AfD and right-wing excesses in German society,” said a statement from the organization Friday for Future and the Citizens Campact alliance. Police did not provide total numbers for all of these gatherings.
On Sunday the mobilization was so great that the demonstration had to be interrupted because there were too many people on the streets. According to the organizers, 50,000 people came to this rally against the AfD, twice as many as were registered. The police, for their part, estimated the crowd at 100,000 people, as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. The turnout on the Reichstag forecourt in Berlin was also huge and, according to the police on RBB radio, there were an estimated 100,000 people; 350,000 people, according to the organizers.
While demonstrations took place in major German cities, smaller cities were also the scene of expressions of opposition to the AfD. In Cologne, organizers estimated the crowd on Sunday at 70,000, and in Bremen, local police counted 45,000 demonstrators in the center. According to public television broadcaster ARD, around 250,000 people had already taken to the streets in dozens of cities across the country on Saturday.
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Upcoming regional elections in Germany
A mobilization of rare proportions that testifies to the shock caused by the revelation on January 10 by the German investigative media Correctiv of a meeting of extremists in Potsdam, near Berlin, where in November there was a planned deportation of a large number of foreigners or foreigners Origin was discussed.
Among the participants were a representative of the radical identity movement, the Austrian Martin Sellner, and members of the AfD. Mr. Sellner presented a project to send up to two million people – asylum seekers, foreigners and German citizens who he said would not be assimilated – back to North Africa, Correctiv says.
The revelation shocked Germany as the AfD continues to rise in the polls, just months before three key regional elections in the east of the country, where voting intentions for the far-right party are even higher than in the rest of the country. The anti-immigration movement confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but denied attending the “remigration” project led by Martin Sellner.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser even estimated in the press that this meeting was reminiscent of “the terrible Wannsee Conference,” at which the Nazis planned the extermination of European Jews in 1942.
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“Nazis out”
Anti-AfD demonstrations have been taking place every day for a week. Around a hundred rallies were planned from Friday to Sunday. “Nazis out,” “No place for Nazis,” could be read on posters held by demonstrators in the German financial metropolis of Frankfurt, where around 35,000 people demonstrated on Saturday.
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Politicians, religious representatives and coaches of the Bundesliga, the German football championship, have called on the population to mobilize against this party with the highest electoral intentions.
In recent months, the AfD has exploited the population's discontent over the renewed influx of migrants into the country and the ongoing quarrels between the three parties in the governing coalition against the backdrop of economic recession and high inflation. The far-right party, which entered parliament in 2017, has firmly established itself in second place in voting intentions (around 22%) behind the Conservatives, while Olaf Scholz's governing coalition with the ecologists and the Liberals is facing record unpopularity. In its strongholds in the former GDR, the AfD is at the top of the opinion polls with over 30%. Six months before the European elections, several European Union countries are facing a rise in far-right forces that could upset the grand balance in the European Parliament.