Extremism: Hand in Hand – Hundreds of thousands at demonstrations against the right

Total strangers hold hands and hold them up. “We are the human firewall,” a voice echoes from the stage. According to police reports, more than 150,000 people gathered in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin on Saturday afternoon. For democracy and tolerance, against right-wing, hatred and the AfD. The organizers, an alliance called Hand in Hand, even spoke of 300,000 participants. They had registered a third of them.

In several other cities there were once again an unusually large number of people taking to the streets on Saturday: around 30,000 in Freiburg, around 25,000 in Augsburg, around 10,000 in Krefeld, according to police information. There are also other demos across the country, some with four-digit numbers of participants.

For a good three weeks, tens of thousands of people have been taking to the streets all over Germany against the right and the AfD. The trigger was research by the media company Correctiv into a meeting between radical right-wingers and individual politicians from the AfD, CDU and Values ​​Union in Potsdam in November.

There, the former head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, said he spoke about the concept of so-called remigration. 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.

Protester: Shut up for too long

Berliner Claudia Kirchert, who came to the Reichstag building with her daughter, was shocked by the results of this research. The 49-year-old talks about doing something about the feeling of powerlessness by participating in the large group. “I probably wouldn’t have gone to such a big demonstration a year ago.” The hope now: The AfD and right-wing populists are signaling that there is a counterweight.

Protester Patrick Stein argues similarly: “I think we kept our mouths shut for too long.” He carries a sign in the style of cigarette pack warnings: “Racism causes significant harm to you and the people around you.”

As the crowd chants “All of Berlin hates the AfD,” a moderator has a different idea: “All of Berlin is stopping the AfD,” he says, and the crowd applauds and joins in. Many young people, some with migrant backgrounds, speak on stage. There are also many middle-aged, middle-class people in the crowd, braving the rain, which initially just drizzles and later becomes heavier.

You can see colorful flags, gray-haired people with signs against deportations, people dancing, and several families with children. And also some who see themselves as victims of right-wing extremist fantasies: “I’m gay. I would certainly be one of the groups that would be discriminated against by this right-wing extremist mob,” says 59-year-old Armin Dötsch, who was one of the first in the morning red jacket and with signs from the social association SoVD is on site. He also emphasizes that the social glue of society must be maintained and improved.

Serkan Bingöl came with a group of refugees, four or five young men standing around him. The 36-year-old is a Berliner with a German passport and a high school teacher. He says: “We want to set an example for solidarity and that we are against discrimination. And that we think it would be nice if a society with diversity instead of simplicity continues to exist in Germany.”

Hope for the social impact of the demos

Several of the people interviewed that day expressed a lack of understanding towards people who see the AfD as a solution to their dissatisfaction. A sign sums it up like this: “If the AfD is the answer, then how stupid was the question?” 27-year-old Stefan Morlock hopes that the demonstrations will have a more than symbolic impact on society and politics: “The action is evident in the elections, but also in everyday life. That you stand up for the weaker people in society.”

Several speakers called on the democratic parties to oppose the shift to the right and to counter right-wing demands and narratives. Luisa Neubauer, face of the German climate movement, says according to the speech manuscript: You cannot shout “Peace, joy, democracy for all” at the demonstration in one day and then return to parliament and bring deeply right-wing words, language and politics into the democratic center. “That doesn’t work.”

According to the police, more than 100,000 demonstrators came to Berlin’s government district on January 21st. The Bundestag, which has been based in the converted historic Reichstag building since 1999, is the central symbol of German democracy.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has already assessed the numerous planned anti-right demonstrations this weekend as a “strong sign” for democracy and the Basic Law.