Thousands of demonstrators against the far-right AfD party

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Thousands of people demonstrated in Germany this Sunday against the far-right AfD party and its radical ideology, sparking mobilization on a scale rare for a week. In Munich (south) the flow was so great that a planned march through the streets of the Bavarian capital had to be interrupted. Organizers said 50,000 people turned out, twice as many as registered.

Other estimates place the figure higher, up to 200,000 people. Police, for their part, estimated the crowd at 100,000, according to the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. In processions, some marked signs “Nazis out“or”Never again, it’s now“

Around 250,000 people gathered in dozens of cities across the country on Saturday, according to ARD channel estimates. In Frankfurt, the center of German finance, 35,000 people “Save democracy

“

Mass eviction plan

Calls to gather were launched on Sunday in around forty cities such as Berlin, Munich and Bonn, but also in more modest areas. A demonstration is also planned in Dresden, the capital of the state of Saxony, a stronghold of the anti-immigrant and anti-system Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. In Cologne, organizers estimated Sunday’s crowd at 70,000, while in Bremen, local police counted 45,000 demonstrators in the center.

On January 10, the gathering witnessed a revelation by the German investigative media. correction A meeting of extremists in Potsdam, near Berlin, where, in November, a plan to expel foreigners or people of foreign origin en masse was discussed. Interior Minister Nancy Fesser went so far as to speculate in the press that the meeting “The dreaded 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 country’s east where voting intentions for the far-right party are higher than in other parts of the country.

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Football and church came together

The anti-immigration movement confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but refused to stick to the project of “.Migration» Worn by Martin Sellner. 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 Scholze “Everyone has to take a stand – for unity, for tolerance, for our democratic Germany“

“The republic grows», commented weekly Spiegel on its website after Saturday’s rallies. Anti-AfD demonstrations have been on a daily rhythm for a week. About a hundred rallies were organized from Friday to Sunday. Political leaders, religious representatives and coaches of the Bundesliga, the German football championship, called on the population to rally against the party, currently at its highest level of voting intention. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier decided on Sunday that the demonstrators “Give us all courage” “They defend our Republic and our Constitution against their enemies“, he launched in a video message.

Attract votes

The AfD has capitalized in recent months on a new influx of migrants into the country amid economic slowdown and high inflation, and the population’s sense of disaffection as a result of perennial feuds between the three parties in the government coalition.

The far-right party, which entered parliament in 2017, has firmly established second place in voting intentions behind the conservatives (around 22%) while Olaf Scholz’s government coalition with ecologists and liberals faces record unpopularity.

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In its stronghold in the former GDR, the AfD also topped opinion polls with more than 30%. Six months before European elections, many EU countries are facing a surge from the far right that could upset the key balance of the European Parliament.