About 250,000 people demonstrated across Germany on Saturday against the far-right AfD party, whose members recently discussed the mass deportation of people of foreign origin at an ultra-identitarian rally.
The largest of the rallies took place in Frankfurt, the country’s economic capital, with 35,000 participants rallying behind the banner “Save democracy – Frankfurt against the AfD,” according to local police. An equal number of demonstrators gathered in Hannover (north), some with “Nazis out” signs. About 30,000 people marched in the streets of Dortmund (west) and 16,000 in Halle, according to police.
Mass eviction plan
Other rallies are planned for Sunday, notably in Berlin and Dresden in Saxony, a stronghold of the anti-immigrant and anti-establishment Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Politicians, religious representatives and coaches of the Bundesliga, the German football championship, have called on the population to rally against the party, which currently ranks highest in voting intentions.
The consolidation was triggered by the revelation on January 10 by a German investigative media reformer of a meeting of extremists in Potsdam, near Berlin, where, in November, a planned mass deportation of foreigners or foreigners of foreign origin was discussed.
Reminiscent of the Wannsee Conference?
Interior Minister Nancy Fesser speculated in the Funke Press Group newspaper that the meeting was reminiscent of the “terrible Wannsee Conference”, where the Nazis planned the extermination of European Jews in 1942.
Among the participants were a figure from the radical identity movement, the Austrian Martin Sellner, and members of the AfD. Martin Sellner presented a project to send back two million people to North Africa – asylum seekers, foreigners and German citizens who will not be assimilated -, says Corrective.
The revelations rocked Germany as the AfD surged in the polls, just months before three crucial regional elections in the east of the country, where the party has the most supporters. The anti-immigration movement confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but refused to adhere to the “remigration” project led by Martin Sellner.
“Everyone must take a stand for our democratic Germany”
Many political leaders, including Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who took part in a demonstration last weekend, insisted that any plan to deport people of foreign origin was an attack on democracy. Olaf Scholz called on “everyone to take a stand – for unity, for tolerance, for our democratic Germany”.
Conservative CDU party leader Friedrich Merz said it was “very encouraging that thousands of people are demonstrating peacefully against extremism”. But in addition to members of the AfD, two members of the CDU, who belong to the party’s far-right wing, the Verteunion, also took part in the meeting announced by the Reformation.
The head of the WerteUnion (“Union of Values”), Hans-Georg Massen, announced his split from the CDU on Saturday. The group claims 4,000 members. “By a large majority, the members of Vertünen voted for the formation of a party of the same name”, which intends to participate in the next election, announced Hans-Georg Massen. “The party can already compete in regional elections in East Germany and work with all parties (…) that are ready for political change in Germany,” he added, not excluding special cooperation with the AfD.
