Anti-AfD protests: East Commissioner Schneider urges Ampel for concrete commitment

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Posters at an anti-AfD demo, here last Sunday in Chemnitz with around 6,000 participants: "This simply shows that this country is not falling into apathy."

Photo: IMAGO / Wolfgang Schmidt

More than 100,000 people in Berlin, around 60,000 in Leipzig, at least 80,000 people each in Hamburg and Munich, thousands also in smaller cities like Görlitz or Chemnitz: In the past few days, people across the country took to the streets to protest against right-wing extremism and fascism engage.

The traffic light's eastern representative, Carsten Schneider (SPD), would now also like to see the same level of commitment from political actors and his own government.

"The demonstrations themselves will of course not be enough," said Schneider on Deutschlandfunk, "but for many it will be a political starting point for political action." This is a test for the traffic light coalition.

»So I walk humbly through the country.

I am aware that we have lost trust in the last year and a half, especially through our political appearance - rather than our substantive actions.

»From the couch to the street and in cold temperatures«

According to Schneider, the revelations about a meeting of right-wing extremists in Potsdam have sparked fear.

»From the couch to the street and in cold temperatures.

This simply shows that this country is not falling into apathy, but that the population also lives democracy.

It is therefore all the more important to look at the upcoming local elections, especially in federal states such as Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony, where the AfD is currently enjoying high approval ratings.

Schneider pointed out that the challenges cannot be overcome with short-term measures.

A change in the climate of opinion requires “hard political work.”

The protests were triggered by the revelations about the Potsdam meeting on November 25th, in which AfD politicians and individual members of the CDU and the “Union of Values” took part in Potsdam.

The former head of the right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement” in Austria, Martin Sellner, was also present.

At the meeting, considerations about “remigration” were said to have been discussed.

When right-wing extremists use the term, they usually mean that large numbers of people of foreign origin should leave the country - even under duress, and possibly even if they have a German passport.

mrc/dpa