“The far right is literally in panic”: Hundreds of thousands demonstrate against the AfD. Heavy fighting in the south of the Gaza Strip +++ UNRWA boss warns of an end to aid to Gaza

Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated again this weekend across Germany against the right and the AfD. This means that the national campaigns are still very popular more than two weeks after they started. According to the police, around 100,000 people turned out in Düsseldorf alone on Saturday. According to the Fridays for Future movement, around 100,000 people gathered in Hamburg on Sunday, including climate activist Luisa Neubauer – police did not initially reveal a number. The participants chanted “Hamburg hates the AfD” or “We are more”.

Complete national participant numbers were initially unavailable. In many places the events were supported by politicians. Baden-Württemberg Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) attended privately in Sigmaringen on Saturday, and Schleswig-Holstein Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU) and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) demonstrated in Aachen. In Saxony-Anhalt, local Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU) took to the streets in Wittenberg. In Osnabrück, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) warned against the AfD during a meeting.

Comparison with the Weimar Republic

The police spoke of about 25,000 demonstration participants in Osnabrück, the organizers estimated the number at about 30,000. Pistorius said the AfD wanted systemic change. “That means nothing more than that they want to return to the dark times of racial madness, discrimination, inequality and injustice.” He drew a comparison with the Weimar Republic, which was destroyed not by its enemies, but by the weakness of its friends. “Today we know better, history should not repeat itself.”

The demonstration took place in Düsseldorf under the motto “Against the AfD – We will not be silent. We don’t look away. We act!” The demonstrators included people of all ages, including many families with children. The banners bore inscriptions such as “I generally don’t like Nazis” and “Not again!” A 69-year-old, who said he was participating in a demonstration for the first time in decades, said: “If we don’t show our colors now, we’re going in a direction we can’t get out of.”

The mayor of Düsseldorf, Stephan Keller (CDU), said during the closing meeting that around 1930 the dangers to the first German democracy were underestimated. “This must not happen to us again,” he warned. “We shout to the extremists: you will never be in the majority again!”

Demos from Lübeck to Singen

In Kiel, the police counted around 11,500 participants in a demonstration against right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism. According to police, there were about 8,000 demonstrators in Lübeck, about 6,000 in Kaiserslautern and up to 20,000 in Mannheim. Officials said there were about 20,000 people in Aachen, more than 1,000 in Marburg and up to 6,000 in Bremerhaven.

But people also took to the streets in smaller towns: in Singen the police counted about 4,000 demonstrators, in Sigmaringen about 2,000 people. In East Germany, Frankfurt/Oder (about 4,500 people), Zwickau (about 4,000), and Bautzen and Weimar (about 1,500 each) stood out.

Demos for a few days now

According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, more than 900,000 people took part in anti-right-wing demonstrations last weekend. She based herself on information from the police.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) welcomed the numerous demonstrations against right-wing extremism. ‘Our country is currently on its feet. Millions of citizens are taking to the streets,” he said in his weekly “Chancellor Compact” video. It is the solidarity of the democrats that makes democracy strong. «Our democracy is not given by God. It is man-made. She is strong if we support her. And she’ll need us if she’s attacked.”

Extremism expert sees AfD insecure

Sociologist Matthias Quent told the portal tagesschau.de that the AfD was deeply disturbed by the ongoing protests. ‘The extreme right is literally in panic’ said the right-wing extremism expert. The images of the mass demonstrations call into question the aura that the AfD was “the party of the people”. Attempts are being made to question these demonstrations as fakes and as stagings. “But these stories don’t really get through.”

The protests were sparked by revelations from the Correctiv research center on January 10 about a meeting of radical rightists in which several AfD politicians as well as individual members of the CDU and the very conservative Values ​​Union participated in Potsdam. The former head of Austria’s right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement, Martin Sellner, said he spoke about “remigration” at the November 25 meeting. When right-wing extremists use the term, they usually mean that large numbers of people of foreign origin must leave the country – even under duress. According to Correctiv, Sellner mentioned three target groups: asylum seekers, foreigners with right of residence and “non-assimilated citizens”.

Elections in September in three eastern German states

New state parliaments will be elected in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia in September. According to surveys, the AfD could become the strongest force in all three states by a significant margin. In two national surveys by Insa and Forsa (for ‘Bild am Sonntag’ and for RTL/ntv), the AfD recently lost popularity, but remained the strongest force after the Union with 21 and 20 percent respectively. In Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, the AfD is assessed as definitively right-wing extremist by the relevant Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and classified nationally as a suspected case. (sda/dpa)