Hundreds Of Thousands Protest Germany’s AfD Party

The Associated Press reports:

The far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is in second place in recent polls and has prompted widespread protests across the country before voters cast their ballots on Feb. 23.

The protest at Munich’s Theresienwiese — where Oktoberfest takes place each year — brought a significantly larger crowd than expected, according to the German dpa news agency. The event’s organizer estimated the crowd could be up to 320,000 people, many of whom carried signs against the AfD with slogans like, “Racism and hatred is not an alternative.”

The protest was supported by activist groups as well as the Munich Film Festival, churches and Munich soccer clubs FC Bayern and TSV 1860, among others.

Agence France-Presse reports:

Germany has long had an unwritten rule against working with the far right. But protesters say the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the frontrunner in the polls, breached that so-called “firewall” by seeking the AfD’s support in parliament for an anti-immigration bill.

“I want democrats to take back control,” said 64-year-old protester Joachim Hageboeck. “It’s bad enough that Austria, America and other countries have so many fascists in charge. We have to oppose them.”

The CDU has ruled out forming a government with the AfD, which is polling in second place ahead of the elections. “We would be betraying our country,” Merz on Saturday told a rally in Nuremberg of the CSU, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party.

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