TENS of thousands of people protested against the far right in cities across Germany on Saturday, in the latest in a series of demonstrations that have been gaining momentum in recent days.
The demonstrations came in the wake of a report that right-wing extremists recently met to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship.
Some members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) were present at the meeting.
Police said that a Saturday afternoon protest in Frankfurt drew 35,000 people. Demonstrations in Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Hannover, among other cities, also drew large crowds.
A similar demonstration on Friday in Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city, drew what police said was a crowd of 50,000 and had to be ended early because the mass of people led to safety concerns.
Tens of thousands of people were expected to take part in protests in other major German cities on Sunday, including Berlin, Munich and Cologne.
The catalyst for the protests was a report from the media outlet Correctiv last week on an alleged far-right meeting in November, which it said was attended by figures from the extremist Identitarian Movement (IM) and from the AfD.
Prominent IM member, Austrian citizen Martin Sellner, presented his “remigration” vision for deportations, the report said.
The AfD has sought to distance itself from the extremist meeting, saying it had no formal links to the event and members who attended did so in a purely personal capacity.
Polling now puts the AfD in second place nationally with about 23 per cent.
The widespread anger over the Correctiv report has prompted calls for Germany to consider banning the AfD.
But many of the AfD’s opponents have spoken out against the calls, arguing that the process would be lengthy, success is highly uncertain and it could benefit the party by allowing it to portray itself as a victim.
Elected officials from across the political spectrum, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, expressed their support for the protests.
He said: “Protesters’ efforts are an important symbol for our democracy and against right-wing extremism.”
Friedrich Merz, head of the centre-right Christian Democrats, said the protests show Germans are “against every form of hate, against incitement and against forgetting history.
“The silent majority is raising its voice and showing that it wants to live in a country that is cosmopolitan and free,” he told the German news agency DPA.
Support for the protests also came from prominent figures in the world of sport.
Bayern Munich soccer coach Thomas Tuchel said we must “stand up 1,000 per cent against any king of extremism.”
