© Reuters. People wait for public transport in the afternoon A Broad Alliance party held a demonstration against Alternative for Germany (AFD), right-wing extremism and for the protection of democracy in Berlin, Germany, January 21, 2024. REUTERS/ Sabine Siebold
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By Emma-Victoria Farr and Holger Hansen
FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in towns and cities across Germany this weekend, as the country enters a second week of nationwide protests against the right-wing Alternative for Germany party ( AfD).
The protests have gained momentum after reports emerged from investigative news website Correctiv about a meeting of right-wing extremists in Potsdam where immigration policies, including mass deportations of people of foreign origin, were discussed.
The AfD, which is second in national polls, has denied that the reported migration plans are party politics.
Demonstrations were held on Sunday in Berlin, Munich and Cologne, as well as in more traditional AfD electoral strongholds in eastern Germany such as Leipzig and Dresden, with turnout in many places much larger than expected.
According to the police, the organizers in Munich ended the demonstration early due to the overcrowding of around 100,000 participants. Protest organizers said 200,000 people attended. At the start of the event in Berlin there were 30,000 people and the number was growing, police said.
Several tens of thousands of people also took to the streets on Sunday in Cologne and Bremen. Event organizers estimated that around 300,000 people demonstrated across the country on Saturday.
“It is a signal to the world that we will not allow this to happen without comment,” said protester Steffi Kirschenmann, a Frankfurt-based social counselor, one of tens of thousands who gathered peacefully in sub-zero temperatures in central Frankfurt. Saturday.
Frankfurt Mayor Mike Josef addressed the crowd at Roemer Square, which reminded protesters that it was the same place where the Nazi regime had burned books.
The AfD did not want to comment on the demonstrations against it.
Business leaders have expressed concerns, and Siemens Energy supervisory board chairman Joe Kaeser told Reuters the reports trigger “bitter memories.”
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has seen the demonstrations across Germany against right-wing extremism as a sign of strength. In a video message distributed on Sunday, Steinmeier said: “You stand against misanthropy and right-wing extremism, these people encourage us all.”
He called for an alliance of all Democrats and said: “Let's show that together we are stronger.”
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck told a local newspaper that he saw the demonstrations as an encouraging sign for democracy.
“It is impressive to see how many people now take to the streets and raise the flag of our democracy,” the Green Party politician told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. The Central Council of Jews in Germany also celebrated the demonstrations. For Jews, this is an image “that can restore confidence in the democratic conditions” of the country, Central Council President Josef Schuster told Welt-TV.
The German newspaper Boersen-Zeitung on Saturday published a series of statements from companies listed on the stock index denouncing xenophobia, anti-Semitism and far-right political extremism.
