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Protest march against right-wing extremism and the AfD in Hamburg

Photo: Achim Duwentäster / teamwork / IMAGO

According to Bundestag member Bernd Baumann, the AfD sees the mass protests against its policies as “the last stand” before this year’s elections. "We're not afraid of that," said the parliamentary director of the AfD parliamentary group in Berlin. "We see this as the last attempt, so to speak, the last attempt to somehow score points in the upcoming elections because the political arguments have run out in the parliaments."

Baumann also said: “We have ten million voters in total, and now a few hundred thousand have taken to the streets for left-green politics. From our point of view, these are different target groups that were called upon, which overall represent this entire left-green caste in Germany.

more on the subject

  • Right-wing extremist danger: What if the AfD comes to power? By Ann-Katrin Müller, Frank Hornig and Jan Puhl

  • Social psychologist on protests against the right: "It is often incredibly difficult to wake people up." An interview by Marc Röhlig

  • Right-wing extremist rhetoric of the AfD:My German FearA self-reflection by Jurek Skrobala

Tens of thousands of people took part in the demonstrations against right-wing extremism and the AfD that have been going on for weeks over the weekend. The trigger was a report by the Correctiv research center about a meeting of radical right-wingers in Potsdam with some AfD politicians as well as individual members of the CDU and the very conservative “Values ​​Union”.

The former head of the right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement” in Austria, Martin Sellner, said he spoke about “remigration” at the meeting on November 25th. 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.

CDU politician Christian Herrgott was able to achieve a small election victory against the AfD at the weekend. In a district election in Thuringia, he narrowly defeated AfD candidate Uwe Thrum. The election results showed that there is some mobilization potential in the demonstrations - but on both sides: In the second round of voting there was a turnout of 68.6 percent, which is particularly high for a municipal vote.

mfh/dpa