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Thousands of people demonstrate in Berlin against the right.
© Carsten Koall/dpa
Hundreds of thousands of people nationwide have taken a stand against right-wing extremism.
Now we look ahead: Politicians are demanding that the protests reverberate.
And there are more actions coming up.
Berlin - After the demo weekend with hundreds of thousands of participants across Germany, protests against right-wing extremism will continue in some cities today.
Meanwhile, politicians continue to be impressed by the large number of demonstrators - and are demanding consequences.
At the weekend, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across the country to campaign against right-wing extremism and for democracy.
In Munich, the protest had to be called off because there were too many people - the police said there were around 100,000 participants.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in numerous German cities over the weekend to demonstrate against right-wing extremism, like here in Hanover.
© Moritz Frankenberg/dpa
According to police estimates, up to 100,000 demonstrators also gathered in Berlin.
Tens of thousands also took to the streets in cities such as Frankfurt, Hanover, Cologne, Bremen and Leipzig.
And: Thousands also protested in many smaller cities, for example in Erfurt, according to the police, 6,000 people took a stand against the right, in Kassel 12,000 and in Halle there were 16,000.
Protests should continue
The protests are set to continue today; demonstrations have been registered in Bayreuth, Freiberg in Saxony and Paderborn in East Westphalia.
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert called the actions “an impressive demonstration of a self-confident civil society.”
Kühnert told the Düsseldorf “Rheinischen Post”: “It is important that the momentum of the last few days does not die down.
The many rallies must become an even more sustainable commitment to our democracy.”
The sociologist Klaus Hurrelmann viewed the demonstrations as evidence of a change in mood among the population.
“The protests against the right seem to me like a liberation by groups of the population who were busy with themselves for a long time because of Corona and the many other challenges and almost overlooked what was at stake,” he told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. “.
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Kretschmer: “The federal government must act”
Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) called the protests “moving” and demanded in the “Report from Berlin” in the ARD capital studio: “The federal government must act.
We all have a civic responsibility to get involved.” He is convinced that it will be possible to “give this country further decades of stability and prosperity.”
The protests were triggered by the revelations by the Correctiv research center about a meeting of right-wing extremists on November 25th, in which AfD politicians as well as individual members of the CDU and the very conservative Values Union took part in Potsdam.
The former head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, said he spoke about “remigration” at the meeting.
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.
Schwesig: Demos give courage - AfD is coming under pressure
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) told the "Tagesspiegel" that she had the impression that the AfD was coming under pressure as a result of the demonstrations.
“We are experiencing something completely new: a mass protest against a partly right-wing extremist party.
The many demonstrations encourage the Democrats.”
A dog carries a placard with the inscription “Dogs against Nazis” at the demonstration in Berlin.
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
A part of the population shares the AfD's content and slogans and cannot be convinced even if the traffic light government made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP does a better job, said Schwesig.
“But what matters is how strongly the AfD wins over protest voters.
These are exactly the voters we want and can win back,” she said.
“Citizen dialogues, investments in infrastructure, conversations at eye level instead of making decisions over people’s heads” are suitable for this.
dpa