Nearly 250,000 individuals took to the streets in several German cities last Saturday to protest against the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), amid recent news of the party’s discussions about a plan for the mass expulsion of foreigners from the country.
In Frankfurt, the country’s financial capital, a massive rally saw about 35,000 participants, according to local police. Protesters held banners advocating for the defense of democracy and condemning the extremist party.
Similarly, in the northern city of Hanover, protesters displayed signs equating the extremist party with Nazism and called for its exit from the German political scene.
The western city of Dortmund saw around 30,000 demonstrators, as reported by local police.
Other cities including Erfurt, Aachen, Kassel, and several smaller towns also saw protests.
The public television channel ARD reported that the total number of protesters denouncing the German far-right across the country on Saturday amounted to about 250,000 people.
More demonstrations against the AfD are expected to take place on Sunday in various cities, including Berlin and Dresden in Saxony, a stronghold of the anti-refugee and anti-immigrant party.
Protesters called for the far-right Alternative for Germany to be removed from the country’s political scene (Anadolu Agency)
Political leaders, religious figures, and soccer league coaches in Germany had called for demonstrations against the extremist party currently topping opinion polls.
The mobilization against the party began after the German fact-checking platform Correctiv revealed on January 10 an assembly of extremists discussing a plan for the mass expulsion of certain foreigners and people of foreign origin from Germany.
The platform disclosed that members of the AfD, neo-Nazis, and businessmen met in November 2023 in Potsdam, adjacent to Berlin, to discuss a plan to expel foreigners or those of foreign origin from Germany.
The AfD later confirmed it was in discussions with a far-right Austrian party that supports repatriation but denied endorsing the idea of mass expulsion of foreigners.
The co-founder of the Austrian Identitarian Movement, Martin Sellner, proposed a project for the repatriation of around two million asylum seekers, foreigners, and unassimilated German citizens to North Africa, as per Correctiv.
From the AfD, the personal representative of the party’s co-leader Alice Weidel, Roland Hartwig, and other prominent members attended the meeting.
The AfD explained that Hartwig presented a social networking site project during the meeting but did not offer political strategies or relay Sellner’s immigration policy ideas to the party.
The meeting provoked widespread criticism and outrage in German political circles and among the public, with the German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser comparing it to the horrific “Wannsee Conference” where Nazis planned the extermination of European Jews in 1942.
Numerous political leaders, including the Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, emphasized that any plans for the expulsion of people of foreign origin represented an attack on democracy.
Scholz called on “everyone to take a stand for cohesion and tolerance, and for a democratic Germany.”
Friedrich Merz, leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, expressed enthusiasm over the thousands of people protesting peacefully against extremism.
The AfD, under surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Germany’s domestic intelligence agency), is making gains in opinion polls.
