Around 250,000 people came out on Saturday across Germany on protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany. It came after it emerged that party members had discussed mass deportation plans at a meeting of extremists, AFP said.
About 35,000 people joined the call, titled “Defending Democracy – Frankfurt vs. Alternative for Germany,” according to police passed through Frankfurt, the financial heart of Germany.
A similar number of people, some carrying placards such as “Nazis Out”, turned out in the northern city of Hanover.
Another 30,000 people came out in the western city of Dortmund.
From Friday until the end of the week demonstrations were convened at around 100 locations in Germanyincluding in Berlin on Sunday.
According to public broadcaster ARD, the total number of participants on Saturday was 250,000.
Not only politicians, but also churches and Bundesliga coaches called on people to oppose Alternative for Germany.
The wave of mobilization against the far-right party was sparked by a January 10 report by the investigative magazine Correctiv, which revealed that members of Alternative for Germany discussed the expulsion of immigrants and “unassimilated citizens” meeting with extremists.
Among the participants in the talks was Martin Zellner, leader of the Austrian Identity Movement, which adheres to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that there is a conspiracy of non-white migrants to replace the “native” white population of Europe.
The news of the reunion sent shockwaves across Germany at a time when Alternative for Germany rises in opinion pollsjust a few months before the three major regional elections in East Germany, where support for them is strongest.
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The anti-immigrant party confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but denied that it had committed itself to the “remigration” project supported by Zellner.
But leading politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who joined the demonstration last weekend, said any plan to expel immigrants or citizens is tantamount of “an attack on our democracy and in turn on all of us”.
He called for “everyone to take one position – for unity, for tolerance, for our democratic Germany”.
Interior Minister Nancy Pfizer went so far as to say in the papers of the Funke press group that the far-right meeting was reminiscent of the “terrible Wannsee conference” in which the Nazis planned the extermination of European Jews in 1942 Mr.
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Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition conservative CDU party, also wrote in X that it was “very encouraging that thousands of people are demonstrating peacefully against right-wing extremism”.
But in addition to members of Alternative for Germany, the rally near Potsdam, cited by Correctiv, was also attended by two members of the far-right Werteunion faction of the CDU.
Amid the furor over the Potsdam meeting, Werteunion leader Hans-Georg Maassen said on Saturday that he decided to separate from the CDU.
The group said it has around 4,000 members, many of whom were originally members of the CDU or the CDU’s Bavarian sister party the CSU.
2024-01-20 21:13:29
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