About 250,000 people turned out across Germany on Saturday in protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which sparked an outcry after it emerged that the party’s members discussed mass deportation plans at a meeting of extremists.
About 35,000 people joined a call under the banner “Defend democracy — Frankfurt against the AfD,” marching in Frankfurt. the financial heart of Germany, police said.
A similar number, some carrying posters like “Nazis out,” turned up in the northern city Hanover.
Photo:Ap
Another 30,000 turned out in the western city of Dortmund.
Demonstrations have been called in about 100 locations across Germany from Friday through the weekend, including in Berlin yesterday. Public broadcaster ARD put the total turnout on Saturday at 250,000.
Not only politicians but also churches and Bundesliga coaches have urged people to stand up against the AfD.
The wave of mobilization against the far-right party was sparked by a Jan. 10 report by investigative outlet Correctiv, which revealed that AfD members had discussed the expulsion of immigrants and “non-assimilated citizens” at a meeting with extremists.
Among the participants at the talks was Martin Sellner, a leader of Austria’s Identitarian Movement, which subscribes to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that claims there is a plot by non-white migrants to replace Europe’s “native” white population.
News of the gathering sent shock waves across Germany at a time when the AfD is soaring in opinion polls, just months ahead of three major regional elections in eastern Germany where their support is strongest.
The anti-immigration party confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but has denied taking on the “remigration” project championed by Sellner.
However, leading politicians including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said any plan to expel immigrants or citizens alike amounted to “an attack against our democracy, and in turn, on all of us.”
He urged “all to take a stand — for cohesion, for tolerance, for our democratic Germany.”
German Minister of the Interior and Community Nancy Faeser went so far as to say in the newspapers of the Funke press group that the far-right meeting was reminiscent of “the horrible Wannsee conference,” where the Nazis planned the extermination of European Jews in 1942.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of the opposition conservatives Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, also wrote on X that it was “very encouraging that thousands of people are demonstrating peacefully against right-wing extremism.”
However, besides members of the AfD, two members of the hard-right faction Werteunion of the CDU were also at the meeting near Potsdam cited by Correctiv.
Amid the outrage over the Potsdam meeting, the Werteunion’s leader Hans-Georg Maassen said on Saturday it had decided to split from the CDU.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS