[TheGuardian] Protests held at about 100 locations over party’s meeting with neo-Nazis to discuss deporting those it deems have failed to integrate, including German citizens.
More than 100,000 people turned out across Germany on Saturday in protest against the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, which sparked an outcry after it emerged that the party’s members discussed mass deportation plans at a meeting of extremists.
In Frankfurt, about 35,000 people joined a call under the banner “Defend democracy – Frankfurt against the AfD”, marching in the financial heart of Germany. A similar number, some carrying posters like “Nazis out”, turned up in the northern city of Hanover.
| Serious protests in Germany are usually much bigger. |
The protests began after it emerged AfD party members had attended meetings with neo-Nazis and other extremists to discuss the mass deportation of migrants, asylum seekers and German citizens of foreign origin deemed to have failed to integrate.
| How many AfD members? A few is very different than a substantial delegation. |
Among the participants at the talks near the east German city of Potsdam was Martin Sellner, a leader of Austria’s Identitarian Movement, which subscribes to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that claims there is a plot by non-white migrants to replace Europe’s “native” white population.
| For a segment of the colonists from the Middle East that is a long-standing plan, not a plot — they’re making hegira to incorporate Europe into the Ummah. It’s a plan for a segment of Western Europe’s ruling elite, too,anxious to use immigrants to replace the falling native population. They mean well, but as Bat Ye’or documented, it’s been going in for decades. |
News of the gathering sent shock waves across Germany at a time when the AfD is soaring in opinion polls, just months ahead of three major regional elections in eastern Germany where their support is strongest. |