Germany said “nein” to the far right. More than 150,000 people in Berlin, and tens of thousands in other German citiesdemonstrated today Saturday again against the extreme right, with a central slogan: “We are the mound!” Chancellor Olaf Solz spoke of a “strong message for democracy and the constitution”, welcoming the gatherings.

The alliance “Hand to Hand – Take Action Now!” coordinated 1,700 organisations, which staged today’s demonstration in the capital, with the crowd gathering between the federal parliament building and the chancellery and forming a human chain with arms raisedshouting “All
Berlin stops the AfD’ and ‘There is no place for racism here’.

Most of the slogans were aimed at the Alternative for Germany (AfD), calling for its ban, while organizers stressed the need for democratic political parties to mobilize against extremist formations. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Saskia Esken attended the Berlin rally, holding banners with the slogan “Show the Nazis a red card”.

Demonstrations with similar slogans were held today in Frankfurt, Dresden, Potsdam, Freiburg, Hanover, but also in smaller towns across the country.

“Whether in Eisenach or Homburg or Berlin, in small and large cities across the country, citizens are gathering this weekend again to demonstrate against oblivion, against hatred. A strong message for democracy and our constitution,” Chancellor Olaf Solz wrote in a post on X.

AfD leader Timos Hroupalas, on the other hand, in an interview with German Radio, called the protests a “diversion tactic” from the government and spoke of the instrumentalization of the gatherings by the parties of the government coalition. “It is certainly very useful for the government to call people to demonstrations in order to divert attention from the real problems,” Mr Khrupala added.

Mass protests against the AfD were sparked earlier this year after investigative journalism website Correctiv revealed a meeting party officials with neo-Nazi organizations, on the subject of drawing up a plan to force mass deportations of immigrants – even with German citizenship – from Germany. Since then, the AfD has shown a decline in opinion polls for the first time in recent years, remaining, however, the second party, with percentages close to 19-20%. The controversial meeting was also attended by members of the “Union of Values”, which recently broke away from the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) in order to establish an independent party.