A flood of light in Berlin, saturated streets in Munich… Hundreds of thousands of Germans demonstrated all weekend against the AfD in a country shocked by the radical tendencies of this far-right party. The anger was triggered by the revelations of a plan for mass expulsions of foreigners or of foreign origins fomented by executives of the German extreme right in Potsdam at the start of the year.
Politicians, religious leaders, and even coaches of the Bundesliga, the German football championship… There are hundreds in Germany who have stood up against the far-right party which is soaring in the polls a few months before three important elections regional elections in the east of the country, where the party has the most supporters.
From Friday to Sunday evening, calls to demonstrate flooded the media and social networks.
Demonstration against the far right on January 20, 2024 in Erfurt, western Germany
© / afp.com/JENS SCHLUETER
1.4 million demonstrators according to organizers
And the calls were heard. 100,000 demonstrators in Berlin. 50,000 in Munich. 70,000 in Cologne. Or even 45,000 in Bremen. “Nazis out”, “no place for Nazis”, could be read on placards of demonstrators in Frankfurt, the German financial capital, where some 35,000 people demonstrated on Saturday. In total, since Friday, nearly 1.4 million people have demonstrated to demand the dissolution of the German far-right party, according to the organization Friday for Future and the citizens’ alliance Campact, which are among the organizers of the movement. No country-wide figures have been provided by the authorities for this rare-scale mobilization, which began a week ago.
It 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, a plan for mass expulsion of foreigners or foreigners. foreign origin was discussed. Seen in the street alongside demonstrators last weekend, Chancellor Olaf Scholz asked “everyone to take a stand – for cohesion, for tolerance, for our democratic Germany”.
For her part, the Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, went so far as to estimate in the press that this meeting of extremists recalled “the horrible Wannsee conference”, where the Nazis planned the extermination of the Jews in 1942. Europeans.
Among the participants, two members of the CDU
The meeting, which sparked controversy, brought together several AfD executives. But the very controversial project would have been presented by a figure of the radical identity movement, the Austrian Martin Sellner who proposed sending back to North Africa up to two million people – asylum seekers, foreigners and German citizens which would not be assimilated according to him.
But in addition to members of the AfD, two lieutenants from the CDU, belonging to the Werteunion, the right wing of the party, also participated in the meeting. An adhesion condemned by the leader of the conservative CDU party, Friedrich Merz who judged on X (formerly Twitter) “very encouraging that thousands of people are demonstrating peacefully against extremism”. A position which obviously did not please the leader of the “Werteunion” which claims 4000 members. And for good reason, this Saturday Hans-Georg Maasse announced the split of his current with the CDU.