In Germany, hundreds of thousands of people in over 100 cities took to the streets against Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) right-wing extremism and for democracy. The organisers and the police estimate that on Saturday alone around 250–300,000 demonstrators hit the streets across the whole of the country.
In Dortmund, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia the police put the number of participants at 30,000. In Recklinghausen, a small town near to where I went to school, demonstrators were estimated at around 12,000. That is around 10% of the population. The motto of the demo there was “Together and in solidarity! Against exclusion, hatred and incitement!”.
Protests triggered by right-wing meeting
The nationwide protests were triggered, among other things, by a report about AfD representatives taking part in a secret meeting at which the deportation of millions of people from Germany was called for – including German citizens.
The previously unknown meeting of right-wing radicals in a Potsdam villa on 25 November came to light last week. This will strengthen the arguments by some politicians who want the right radical party AfD officially banned. Several AfD politicians as well as individual members of the CDU conservative party and the very traditional ‘Wert Union’ (Values Union) also took part in the meeting.
Another participant at the talks was Martin Sellner, banned from the UK for his radical views. He is the leader of Austria’s Identitarian Movement. The anti-immigration party AfD confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting but has denied taking on the radical ‘remigration’ project championed by Sellner.
UK has identitarian groups
The UK also has such identitarian groups, like Britain First which also subscribe to the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory. They claim that there is a plot by non-white migrants to replace Europe’s ‘native’ white population.
While distributing leaflets in Sevenoaks with a local pro-EU group SSTIE, we encountered a group of young men from Generation Identity whose idol is Sellner. Later that afternoon, the usually peaceful high street of idyllic Sevenoaks witnessed street fighting between the identitarian men and anti-fascist Londoners who came to demonstrate about their meeting.
Facebook banned Generation Identity but they have migrated to social media platform Telegram. Newly revealed connections between Austria’s offshoot of Generation Identity – one of Europe’s fastest growing far-right movements – and Brenton Tarrant, the man charged with killing 51 people and the attempted murder of 40 others at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, suggest they are inciting global violence and terrorism.
What is the AfD?
The AfD, founded as a Eurosceptic party in 2013, first entered the German Bundestag in 2017. Now most polls show it in second place at 20%, nearly twice the 10.3% it won in 2021 at the federal elections.
In eastern Germany, in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg where state elections are due to take place later this year, the AfD is leading the polls with more than 30% support.
The main reason for this rise in support is frustration over government economic policies and the increase in immigration amid the crises in the Middle East and the war on Ukraine.
Chris Hammond, who like the author is part of the European Movement National Council, is half German and is at the moment in Würzburg, his second home. He attended the protest taking place there and sent us great photos showing some of the slogans on banners and placards. EU supporters also attended.
People braved snow and freezing conditions to display their views:
“Never Again is now!“
“Stand up for democracy. We stand United. We had this in 1933, mass destruction and genocide. It was shit!“
“Grannies against the right‘“
“My grandfather fought the Nazis. The fight goes on!”
“Nazi-free Germany for my grandchildren!”
Protests in the East
On Sunday, 10,000 people gathered in Potsdam, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens). Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Leipzig, Jena and Magdeburg during the week.
Aside from the street demonstrations, the Catholic archbishops of Magdeburg, Erfurt, Dresden-Meißen and Görlitz, together with their counterparts from Berlin and Hamburg, called for a vote against the AfD in an open letter: “There is no intersection between Christianity and the AfD”, they said.
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD is one of the strongest political forces. It is currently the second strongest force behind the SPD, but has been well ahead in surveys for months.
After AfD politicians took part in the secret Potsdam far right meeting, member of parliament Stefan Bedau (Greens) said:
“A signal should be sent throughout Germany: We are more than those who agitate, exclude and hate.”
The silent majority must set an example.
Protests in the UK
Videos show impressive crowds coming together in cities right across Germany. The only similar UK protests I can think of are the more than one million strong ‘People’s Vote’ march in London in 2019 and, previously, the Iraq war and poll tax protests. Sadly, the numerous anti-Brexit protests of the last six years have not had the impact the organisers and participants had hoped for.
Like Germany, the UK is divided and its democracy is just as much at risk from populist groups and the extreme right. Nigel Farage’s opaquely-funded Reform UK Party and vocal elements on the right of the Conservative Party clearly align with a similar agenda to that of the AfD.
The Labour Party fails to adequately oppose the erosion of our rights to protest or strike or the immoral and unworkable Rwanda plan. It is, ironically, up to the unelected House of Lords to provide a counterweight to a government willing to break international law, our own human rights law and rulings of the Supreme Court.
Pro-EU group National Rejoin March is organising events, including a day of action on 23 March and a third March for Rejoin in September. Some anti-racist groups put on smaller demonstrations. There have been larger protests against genocide in Gaza. But nothing as committed, well-organised and country-wide as the German demonstrations of this weekend.
Why should we all hit the streets?
A short but not exhaustive list of issues which affect us all, caused by Brexit and the Conservative government, (in no particular order) should motivate concerned citizens to demonstrate:
- The shortage of NHS staff and vital medicines with waiting lists causing unnecessary deaths.
- The Covid corruption scandal which caused 1000’s of avoidable deaths. See British Medical Journal Covid report.
- The lost business investment costing each household around £1000 per year – with children left hungry and elderly dying in freezing houses.
- Loss of freedom of movement allowing us to travel, study, marry and work in 30+ countries.
- The loss of earnings from EU concerts afflicting musicians and the export businesses that have suffered and been forced to close.
- The loss of EU environmental protections which ensuring safe waters and banning the frequent discharge of raw sewage.
What will it take for the UK population to say ‘enough is enough’? The hope is that there will be a general election soon and people realise they have been lied to and used. But that might only happen in autumn. Can we put up with the harm our current government can cause in the remaining 10 months? Or can we learn from the Germans?
