Waves of protest continue across Germany after reports the AFD met with far-right extremist groups. Image source: Zinnmann, via Wikimedia Commons.
Protestors took to the streets across Germany this weekend against the far-right, anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AFD).
Demonstrations took place in the cities of Hanover, Magdeburg, and Wolfsburg, as well as several smaller towns and communities.
Approximately 6,000 people attended the protest on Sunday 18 February in Wolfsburg, supported by the city’s football clubs and primary employer Volkswagen.
This weekend marks the sixth continuous week of protests, which broke out on 13 January.
On 3 February, German police said approximately 150,000 people attended in the nation’s capital Berlin.
The protests began after German media outlet Correctiv reported that several high-ranking members of the AFD attended a meeting to plan for the mass deportation of immigrants from Germany.
According to Correctiv, AFD politicians gathered with the ethnonationalist Identitarian Movement, neo-Nazi activists, and sympathetic businesspeople last November in a Potsdam hotel.
Attendants included AFD parliamentary group leader for Saxony-Anhalt Ulrich Siegmund and Austrian leader of the Identitarian Movement Martin Sellner.
The meeting outlined Sellner’s “masterplan” to deport millions of immigrants from Germany, regardless of their citizenship.
The AFD has previously denied ties with the Identitarian Movement.
Though the AFD had been gaining popularity in 2023, recent polls indicate that popular support for the party has dropped since Correctiv’s report.
German politicians from across the political spectrum have publically spoken in favour of the demonstrations.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier voiced his support for “the stand against hate, violence, and extremism” in a video released Saturday 17 February.
“Today once again, tens of thousands, young and old people, entire families, will be out peacefully gathering, standing together for something that connects us all,” said Steinmeier.
“We want to live together, freely, respectfully.”
Steinmeier claims the demonstrations show the “democratic core” of German society is “wide awake”.
Saxony-Anhalt State Premier Reiner Haseloff attended the protest in Magdeburg on Sunday.
“We must fight all forms of racism and inhumanity wherever they appear,” said Haseloff before those gathered.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have previously attended the protests.
