This weekend, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated again across Germany against the far right, especially against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. According to police, about 100,000 people turned out in Dusseldorf alone on Saturday. Demonstrations were also held in smaller towns. More demonstrations are scheduled for Sunday, including in Hamburg. It is not yet known how many people will participate.
In many places, the demonstrations were supported by politicians. For example, the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann (Green Party), was present in Sigmaringen, and the Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Daniel Günther (CDU), and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), demonstrated in Aachen. . In Saxony-Anhalt, local Prime Minister Rainer Haseloff (CDU) took to the streets in Wittenberg.
In Osnabrück, where police said about 25,000 people demonstrated, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) of the AfD party warned. “They want to go back to the dark times of racial madness, discrimination, inequality and injustice.” He compared this to the Weimar Republic, which he said was destroyed not because of its enemies, but because of the weakness of its friends. “Today we know better, history should not repeat itself.”
900 thousand people on the streets
The demonstrations have been going on for days. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, more than 900,000 people participated in anti-right-wing demonstrations last weekend.
The wave of protests began after media reported that members of the AfD party discussed plans with right-wing extremists to deport residents with a migrant background en masse. Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the plan “an attack on our democracy, and therefore on all of us.”
Support for the AfD is growing in Germany, especially in the east. Opinion polls indicate that the party could become the largest in elections in the states of Brandenburg, Thuringia and eastern Saxony later this year.
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