Germans take stand against far-right
“Nie wieder ist jetzt” (never again is now). So read the placards hoisted by hundreds of thousands of Germans during recent protests against the far-right. For the past two weeks, German liberals, centrists, and center-right conservatives have united to oppose a far-right scene mobilizing around the immigration issue. Following a secretive November meeting of Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany - AfD) party leaders, leading figures in the ethnonationalist Identitarian movement, and affluent supporters of such groups’ policies, this opposition to Ausländerfeindlichkeit (xenophobia) has taken center stage in German political discussion.
As first reported by the German investigative outlet CORRECTIV on January 15, the November meeting at the heart of recent outrage centered around a plan of “re-migration,” which proposes encouraging or compelling those with migration backgrounds to leave Germany. Austrian far-right activist Martin Sellner, according to undercover CORRECTIV journalists, presented the “masterplan,” drawing attention to supposedly “unassimilated” holders of German citizenship in his speeches at the meeting. These individuals, Sellner argued, should be pressured via “customized laws” to leave the country; AfD members in attendance reportedly did not object on principle, though a member of the right-wing Verein Deutsche Sprache (German Language Association) questioned the plan’s feasibility.
According to CORRECTIV, Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD parliamentary group leader for the eastern federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, was present at the Potsdam hotel and argued that the owners and patrons of foreign restaurants should be pressured. It should be noted that the AfD’s regional branches in Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, and Thuringia have been classified as right-wing extremist groups by German domestic intelligence services and are thus subject to increased covert surveillance.
Within days of news breaking over this meeting and the “masterplan,” which reportedly includes a proposition to “move people to” a “model state” in North Africa, protesters took to the streets in Cologne and Frankfurt before demonstrations spread to smaller towns throughout the country. With more than 100,000 protestors demonstrating against the AfD by the end of the first weekend following CORRECTIV’s publication, the size and scope of the movement has increased since. Protests in Hamburg and Munich, for example, grew exceedingly large, leading organizers to call off the actions to avoid overcrowding. Rather than remaining a short-term movement, the protests have continued into February, with 150,000 Germans from across the country gathering outside the Bundestag in Berlin on February 3 to denounce the far-right axis.
The AfD, for its part, has claimed that the CORRECTIV report and following media coverage are only the most recent examples of misleading and targeted media action against their movement. Co-chairwoman Alice Weidel insisted that the AfD was being “defamed and slandered” by the mainstream media. Despite the bravado, the party has sought to distance itself from the meeting, quickly firing Roland Hartwig, a top aide to Weidel who was present at the Potsdam hotel, and arguing that its members who attended the event did so in a “private capacity.”
The size, scope, and makeup of these protests are all notable in a country where large-scale political mobilization is relatively uncommon. However, perhaps most interesting are the anti-AfD demonstrations in small communities, especially those in rural eastern Germany where AfD support remains strong. As Deutsche Welle reported on January 26, around 3,000 people convened in Eitorf, a small western town, to confront an AfD member of parliament, Roger Beckamp. Beckamp, the town’s representative in Germany’s federal legislature, implied that the AfD sees the CORRECTIV report as responsible for introducing the “remigration” term into political discourse, a win in their eyes. Emerging from a party meeting, Beckamp was met with a shouting crowd, undeterred by the cold and rainy weather.
With European Parliament elections approaching in June and three regional elections in eastern Germany to follow, discussion over potential impacts of the growing controversy on AfD success at the ballot box abound. In the midst of the recent protests, an AfD candidate heavily favored to win a district-level runoff in Thuringia lost to his center-right CDU opponent. A cross-party mobilization driven by widespread concern over the Potsdam meeting’s discussions is credited with delivering the electoral blow in the AfD-leaning region. Nationwide polls indicate a drop in AfD support following the anti-extremist protests; the party’s support dipped below 20% for the first time since July in a Forsa poll. POLITICO’s “Poll of Polls” similarly recorded a decline for the AfD in national parliament voting intention, with the right-wing party falling from an early January high of 22% to 20% as of January 31. While potential impacts on the major upcoming elections are yet to be seen, such a drop in polling is meaningful, as nationwide support for the AfD had crept upwards in recent months amid ever-growing dissatisfaction with the current “stoplight” governing coalition.
Though protests against the AfD are not new in Germany, this widespread movement, driven by civil society groups, trade unions, and churches and lent unambiguous support by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, represents the most outspoken opposition to the group in recent years. With its involvement in the November Potsdam meeting, the AfD seems to have taken a step too far in a nation where Vergangenheitsbewältigung (accounting for the past) remains an ever-present element of the public conscience. While AfD voters are expected to dig in to defend their positions, many Germans have demonstrated over the past weeks that they will stand up for their democracy and for the right for all those who hold German citizenship to live in peace.