Thousands of Germans took to the streets in several cities to protest the rise of far-right extremism and the growing popularity of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
At Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, people blew whistles and sang anti-fascist songs, and in the western city of Cologne, protesters carried banners denouncing the AfD.
The protests also came as the AfD opened its election campaign in the central city of Halle, where around 4,500 AfD supporters gathered at a venue where party leader Alice Weidel, who is also AfD’s candidate for chancellor, addressed people.
Migration at center of electoral debate before snap elections on February 23
Weidel began her address on a topic that has moved to the forefront of the electoral campaign, especially this week in Germany, that being migration.
Two people were killed, including a two-year-old child, in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg earlier in the week.
An Afghan man who was due to be deported was taken into custody on suspicion of having carried out the attack.
The official manifesto of the AfD seeks faster deportations of declined asylum seekers and those who entered the country illegally and the party has been severely criticized due to several controversial ideas.
AfD in buoyant mood with second place in polls
The far-right AfD is in second place at 20% according to the latest poll tracker, while the center-right bloc of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, Christian Social Union (CSU), is in first place in polls with around 31%.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) currently stands in third place at 15%, just ahead of the Greens with 14%.
Elon Musks joins AfD campaign launch
US billionaire and adviser to President Donald Trump, Elon Musk again backed the AfD, as he appeared via videolink at the campaign launch ahead of the address of the party’s lead candidate, Alice Weidel.
“I’m very excited for the AfD. I think you are really the best hope for Germany,” Musk — who has been accused of meddling in European politics — said and added that it was OK to “take pride” in being German.
“I think there is frankly too much of a focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that. Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents or even their great-grandparents,” he said.
At Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Musk attracted attention with a gesture reminiscent of a Hitler salute.
Weidel conveyed her best wishes for the US, now under the Trump administration and adapted Trump’s slogan and said: “Make Germany great again.”
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has classified the AfD as a “suspected” far-right extremist organization.
Tens of thousands protest over right-wing extremism
Weidel’s event was met with protests in Halle as well, while tens of thousands of others took part in demonstrations against right-wing extremism in several cities.
Cologne police estimated the number of participants on Saturday afternoon at “significantly more than 20,000 people.”
The organizers had initially registered between 5,000 and 10,000 participants.
Despite the large crowds, a police spokeswoman said that everything had been running smoothly.
kb/rm (dpa, AFP)
