by Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in recent days to protest against the far-right Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD. Jurists are arguing whether the party can be banned. Political leaders warn of a fundamental threat to society.
“I will say it clearly and harshly: right-wing extremists are attacking our democracy,” said Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his weekly. video message to the Germans on Friday. “They want to destroy our cohesion.”
While it is not unusual for German politicians to warn against the far right, the alarm has taken on new urgency since it was revealed that far-right leaders had held a secret meeting late last year to discuss mass deportations, not only of illegal immigrants, but even of German citizens who emigrated to the country, whom they do not consider fully assimilated.
“It’s the famous straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Matthias Quent, a sociologist who has spent years studying the far right. “It was the trigger for something and it’s not just about the meeting, but about the strengthening of the AfD, which scares a lot of people.”
The AfD has enjoyed a surge in the polls for months as discontent with Germany’s cumbersome tripartite government has grown, along with fears of uncontrolled immigration. While only 10 percent of Germans voted for the AfD during the last national election in 2020, the party is currently at record levels in the polls: just under 25 percent nationwide and well above 30 percent. percent in the eastern states, which will hold elections later this year.
Fear of a rising AfD has become almost panic since Correctiv, a small crowdfunded investigative news site, revealed last week the private meeting of staunch politicians, businessmen and various neo-Nazis at the end of November.
The keynote speaker at the event was an Austrian far-right advocate, Martin Sellner, who uses the term “remigration,” a buzzword in the extremist scene that denotes long-term deportation strategies.
Sellner confirmed that he participated in the meeting, but denied that he had discussed deporting German citizens, even though he has publicly called for exactly that.
Correctiv documented the meeting using hidden cameras, witness accounts, and an undercover reporter, who checked into the hotel where the meeting took place under a false name.
Organized by a right-wing dentist and a businessman behind a successful chain of self-service bakeries, the meeting brought together about two dozen participants who were asked for a donation of 5,000 euros. The meeting took place in an elegant country hotel near Potsdam, Germany, not far from the villa where, more than eight decades ago, Nazi officials planned the “final solution,” their terrible plan to kill European Jews.
“The vocabulary is not different, the place is not different; the only difference is that we have been there before,” said Andrea Römmele, a teacher at the Hertie School in Berlin.
News of the meeting has resonated throughout the country. On Wednesday night, movie theaters across the country broadcast professional actors performing an interpretive reading of the Correctiv report.
The reaction from the AfD, which is trying to distance itself from the far right, has been mixed. Roland Hartwig, who had attended the meeting, was forced to resign as personal advisor to Alice Weidel, one of the party’s two leaders. Ms. Weidel, for her part, accused Correctiv of using “Secret Service methods.”
René Springer, far-right MP from Brandenburg, the state where the meeting took place, wrote in X: “We will deport foreigners to their countries of origin. Millions of them. This is not a secret plan. It is a promise.”
The AfD is being monitored by the country’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected extremist group, a designation that gives intelligence services more surveillance options. The office found that the party is moving increasingly to the right, to the point of threatening rights enshrined in the Constitution. Several state chapters are already considered extremist groups.
Since details of the November meeting were revealed last week, thousands of people have taken to the streets in Berlin, Potsdam, Freiburg, Cologne and elsewhere. A demonstration on Friday in Hamburg attracted more than 80,000 people, according to the union that co-organized it. More demonstrations are planned for this weekend.
“These demonstrations do not necessarily mean that the AfD’s popularity ratings will decline again,” said Professor Römmele. “But what it does show is that the silent majority is no longer silent; it is an important signal, both nationally and internationally.”
On Wednesday, after some 30,000 people demonstrated against the far right in the western city of Cologne, Scholz showed his support. “I am grateful that tens of thousands of people are taking to the streets all over Germany these days, against racism, hate speech and for our liberal democracy,” he said in a post on shows: we, the Democrats, are many, many more than those who want to divide.”
During a special session of the country’s Parliament on Thursday, Nancy Faeser, the country’s interior minister responsible for national security, joined the chorus of those warning of the danger. “The greatest threat to our basic democratic order is right-wing extremism,” she told lawmakers.
But the growing appeal of the AfD has raised a dilemma about what to do about it. Many of his supporters say they already have a deep suspicion of the government and feel increasingly ignored and disenfranchised. Many of his opponents fear that banning the party would only reinforce those feelings.
However, more than 700,000 people have signed an online petition consider a ban on the AfD. Marco Wanderwitz, a politician from the conservative Christian Democrat party who was previously in charge of relations with East Germany, is trying to convince his colleagues in parliament to vote in favor of such a ban.
But not everyone is convinced that completely banning the party is a good idea.
“The most effective means against the enemies of democracy are not repression, bans and the like,” Philipp Amthor, another Christian Democrat legislator, said Thursday. “The most effective means of preserving a defensible democracy are better arguments, good politics, and good government.”
