2024–2025 German anti-extremism protests
In early 2024, widespread protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany party took place in Germany, after a report by investigative journalist group Correctiv revealed the presence of in-office party members at the meeting of right-wing extremists at Potsdam in 2023, centered on "remigration" proposals to organize mass deportations of foreign-born Germans, including those with German citizenship. Protesters have "sought", as declared by the organizers, to "defend the German democracy from the AfD", with many protesters calling for the party to be investigated by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or banned altogether. This wave of protests became the largest civil society protest movement of the postwar period. A second protest wave erupted in early 2025, shortly before the federal election held on 23 February, after Friedrich Merz and the CDU pushed through a proposal to tighten immigration policy with the AfD. This sparked outrage and demand for the Brandmauer to be upheld.
Background
The Alternative for Germany was established in 2013 as a right-wing eurosceptic party. It began gaining political power following the 2015 European migrant crisis, in which around one million migrants fleeing military conflicts during the Arab Winter were resettled in Germany. The AfD first entered the Bundestag in the 2017 German federal election, becoming the third-largest party behind the Christian Democrats and Social Democratic Party. After a drop in the 2021 federal election, the AfD began to regain popularity after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, finding new appeal as the defender of the economically precarious class which struggled with the global energy crisis and cost inflation caused by the invasion. Political analysts saw the AfD as benefiting both from dissent within the ruling traffic light coalition about how to carry out the transformation of the country into a competitive digitized economy, and from attempts by the opposition party CDU/CSU to regain voters from the AfD themselves through adopting in particular a tougher stance on migration. By July 2023, the AfD was polling as the second-most popular political party in Germany at 20%, behind only the CDU. The same year, it also elected two officials for the first time in its history.On 10 January 2024, investigative journalist group Correctiv published information revealing that members of the AfD had met Identitarian movement activists in the city of Potsdam, where plans to "remigrate" foreign-born Germans, including non-citizens as well as those with German citizenship, were proposed. The report gained massive traction in Germany, with critical comparisons being made to the 1940 Madagascar Plan to deport four million Jews; comparisons to the 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the Final Solution was organized, were also circulating. The mentioning of the Wannsee Conference in the Correctiv report was criticized even though the report had not explicitly compared the two events. Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser said that the Correctiv revelations had evoked memories of the conference, but that she did not want to equate the two events.
Many people and groups have called for the party to be banned, including historians and activist groups that date back to the aftermath of World War Two. Jens-Christian Wagner, head of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorial Foundation in Thuringia said, "It cannot be that liberal democracy allows a party to participate in elections and finances its campaign that seeks to abolish liberal democracy".
The VVN-BdA quoted Erich Kästner, "The events of 1933 to 1945 should have been fought by 1928 at the latest. Later, it was too late. We must not wait until the fight for freedom is called treason. We must not wait until the snowball has become an avalanche. We must crush the rolling snowball..." in a January 2024 call for a ban. Federal chairman of the VVN-BdA, Florian Gutsche, said "The revelation of the deportation plans has brought the AfD's inhumane ideology into the spotlight of public debate. However, these plans are not new. Its platform already clearly shows that it is a völkisch-nationalist party. Through party funding, the AfD has been providing state support to Nazis for years".
AfD leader Alice Weidel defended the party, saying that she had removed those involved in the meeting, and lambasted Correctiv journalists as "left-wing activists using Stasi methods". Two members of the conservative Values Union, a faction of the CDU, also attended the event, and following the backlash, the group's leader Hans-Georg Maaßen announced the movement was severing its ties with the CDU. The Values Union announced on 20 January that it would establish itself as a political party.
Protests in 2024
After several smaller-scale protests, in the evening of 12 January 2024 around 2,000 protested against the AfD at its Hamburg headquarters. The next day, a rally in Duisburg against an AfD new year's reception attracted around 2,400 protesters according to police, far more than anticipated by organizers at the time of registering the rally with authorities, which was before the Correctiv revelations. Also on 13 January, around 650 protesters in Düsseldorf demanded the investigation of the AfD to examine the possibility of its prohibition. On 14 January, thousands protested in Potsdam and at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Among those present at the protests in Potsdam on 14 January were chancellor Olaf Scholz and Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock, both members of the Bundestag from the city. Interviewed by Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Baerbock said that the protesters were "for democracy and against old and new fascism," while Potsdam mayor Mike Schubert said that the remigration plans "are reminiscent of the darkest chapter of German history."Protests continued to draw larger crowds throughout the week, including a protest in Cologne, in which around 30,000 people participated. Non-AfD politicians from across Germany's political spectrum expressed support for the protests, with Scholz writing on Twitter that "We won't allow anyone to distinguish the 'we' in our country based on whether someone has an immigration history or not," pro-business Free Democratic Party politician Christian Dürr directly comparing the AfD to the Nazi Party, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck from the Green Party describing the protests as "impressive" for democracy, and CDU leader Friedrich Merz expressing that it was "very encouraging that thousands of people are demonstrating peacefully against right-wing extremism."
Various churches throughout Germany called on people to protest the AfD, as did coaches of the Bundesliga. Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, described the protests as restoring Jews' faith in German democracy after it having been damaged following antisemitism during the Gaza war. The AfD was also condemned by several businesses, including Siemens, Evonik Industries, Infineon Technologies, and Düsseldorf Airport. The size of the protests exceeded expectations by both police and the organizers; initial estimates of 50,000–80,000 people protesting in Hamburg on 19 January were increased in February 2024 by the city's interior authority to 180,000, after recalculation. Hamburg's mayor, Peter Tschentscher, spoke against the AfD at the protest, saying "We are the majority and we are strong, because we are united and we are determined not to let our country and our democracy be destroyed for a second time after 1945."
Between 19 and 21 January, protests reached a size of 1.4 million people, according to organizers Campact and Fridays for Future. A planned march in Munich was cancelled for safety concerns, as 100,000 people, four times the registered amount, had arrived for the protest, according to local police. Members of the German government urged protests to continue, with Scholz urging as many people as possible to come out for democracy.
The protest in Berlin on 3 February, attendance estimates of which ranged from 150,000 to 300,000 participants, was organized by a collective which included about 1,700 organizations from civil society, sports, and culture, as well as trade unions. The collective, which had formed before the Correctiv revelations, voiced its intent to continue the rallies for the longer term.
As part of the protests, various proposals to ban the AfD have been advocated, including from 25 members of the Bundestag from the SPD. Among those calling for the AfD to be banned is Saskia Esken, co-leader of the SPD. These proposals have been pushed back upon by others, notably Habeck and Merz, who have expressed concerns about the potential risks such a move could pose if unsuccessful. Some of Habeck's comments, however, have been publicly interpreted as expressing support for a ban as protests escalated, saying that the AfD intended to replace German democracy with a system similar to Russia under Vladimir Putin. Others, such as constitutional scholar, have argued that a ban, while possible, would be ill-advised as a result of the AfD's popularity. The AfD would be only the third such party banned nationally, after the Socialist Reich Party and the Communist Party of Germany, both of which were banned during the 1950s, though its branches in the states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia have been declared as extremist. Minister of Interior Faeser has expressed support for a ban on the party, but only as a last resort.
| Date | Location | Participants |
| Berlin | ||
| Cologne | up to | |
| Hamburg | ||
| Frankfurt am Main | ||
| Hannover | ||
| Dortmund | ||
| Munich | – | |
| Berlin | over | |
| Cologne | ||
| Leipzig | – | |
| Bremen | - | |
| Dresden | – | |
| Freiburg im Breisgau | ||
| Düsseldorf | ||
| Osnabrück | ||
| Hamburg | – | |
| Bielefeld | ||
| Berlin | – | |
| Freiburg im Breisgau | over | |
| Dresden | ||
| Augsburg | ||
| Nuremberg | ||
| Munich | – | |
| Münster | ||
| Hamburg |
List of protests
The following extendable table lists protests with at least 5,000 participants that occurred since 11 January 2024 following the report published by Correctiv. It also lists smaller protests that occurred on or before 19 January, on which day a protest in Hamburg attracted around 180,000 participants. The total number of protests from mid-January until April 2024 was counted by taz to be over 1,800, with around four million people attending in total.| Date | Location | Participants | Reported by |
| Berlin | several hundred | Die Zeit | |
| Darmstadt | over 500 | Frankfurter Rundschau | |
| Potsdam | 60 | Tagesspiegel | |
| Berlin | 350 | Tagesspiegel | |
| Hamburg | 2,000 | Die Zeit, Norddeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Mannheim | 250 | Südwestrundfunk | |
| Duisburg | ca. 2,400 | Die Zeit, Rheinische Post | |
| Düsseldorf | 650 | Die Zeit, Rheinische Post | |
| Landau | 250–500 | Die Rheinpfalz | |
| Augsburg | Bayerischer Rundfunk | ||
| Berlin | 25,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Dresden | 2,000 | Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten | |
| Kiel | 7,000 | Norddeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Potsdam | ca. 10,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Saarbrücken | 5,000 | Saarländischer Rundfunk | |
| Stendal | Volksstimme | ||
| Essen | Der Spiegel | ||
| Leipzig | 6,000–7,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Rostock | Der Spiegel | ||
| Tübingen | Südwestrundfunk | ||
| Cologne | up to | Kölner Stadtanzeiger | |
| Hannover | Norddeutscher Rundfunk | ||
| Peine | 500 | Norddeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Schwerin | 1,600 | Die Zeit | |
| Würzburg | 2,000 | Bayerischer Rundfunk | |
| Bergen auf Rügen | 300 | Ostsee-Zeitung | |
| Berlin | 3,500 | Tagesschau | |
| Freiburg im Breisgau | 6,000–10,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Salzwedel | 120 | Volksstimme | |
| Castrop-Rauxel | 1,500 | Ruhr Nachrichten | |
| Gera | 250 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Mainz | 5,000 | Südwestrundfunk | |
| Bielefeld | 4,000 | Radio Bielefeld | |
| Bochum | 13,000 | Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln | |
| Dahlenburg | 500 | Campact | |
| Detmold | 400 | Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln | |
| Erlangen | 4,000 | Bayerischer Rundfunk | |
| Gummersbach | 400 | Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln | |
| Hamburg | 180,000 | Norddeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Iserlohn | 400 | Iserlohner Kreisanzeiger und Zeitung | |
| Jena | 3,300 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Jülich | 700 | Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln | |
| Kiel | 4,000 | Norddeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Lüdenscheid | 500 | Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln | |
| Minden | 4,000 | Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln | |
| Münster | 20,000 | Westfälischer Anzeiger | |
| Nettetal | 1,000 | Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln | |
| Rosenheim | over 500 | Oberbayerisches Volksblatt | |
| Stralsund | 1,200–2,000 | Die Zeit | |
| Wuppertal | 4,000 | Wuppertaler Rundschau | |
| Aachen | 10,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Bamberg | 6,000 | Bayerischer Rundfunk | |
| Braunschweig | 15,000 | Braunschweiger Zeitung | |
| Dortmund | 30,000 | Der Spiegel, Tagesschau | |
| Erfurt | 9,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Frankfurt am Main | Hessenschau, Der Spiegel, Tagesschau | ||
| Freiburg im Breisgau | 5,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Gießen | 12,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Halle (Saale) | 16,000 | Die Zeit, Tagesschau | |
| Hannover | Der Spiegel, Tagesschau | ||
| Heidelberg | 18,000 | Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung | |
| Karlsruhe | 20,000 | Die Zeit, Tagesschau | |
| Kassel | 12,000–15,000 | Tagesschau, Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine | |
| Koblenz | 5,000 | Der Spiegel, Tagesschau | |
| Lingen | 10,000 | Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung | |
| Lüneburg | 5,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Nürnberg | 15,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Offenburg | 5,000 | Campact | |
| Oldenburg | 5,000 | Campact | |
| Recklinghausen | 12,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Stuttgart | 20,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Ulm | 8,000–10,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Wuppertal | 10,000 | Westdeutsche Zeitung | |
| Berlin | over 100,000 | Die Zeit | |
| Bonn | 30,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Bremen | 40,000–45,000 | Die Zeit | |
| Chemnitz | 12,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Cologne | 70,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Cottbus | 3,500–5,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Dresden | 25,000–40,000 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Flensburg | 10,000 | Norddeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Freiburg im Breisgau | 25,000 | Badische Zeitung | |
| Göttingen | 12,000 | RND | |
| Herrenberg | 6,000 | Kreiszeitung Böblinger Bote | |
| Kleve | 5,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Leipzig | 60,000–70,000 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, RND | |
| Mülheim an der Ruhr | 7,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Munich | 100,000–250,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Regensburg | 13,000 | Bayerischer Rundfunk | |
| Saarbrücken | 13,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Stuttgart | 8,000 | Stuttgarter Zeitung | |
| Hamm | 5,500 | wa.de | |
| Paderborn | 5,000 | Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln | |
| Heilbronn | 8,000–15,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Konstanz | 14,000–20,000 | Südkurier | |
| Landshut | 7,000 | Passauer Neue Presse | |
| Oberhausen | 5,000 | Rheinische Post | |
| Hagen | 5,000 | Westfalenpost | |
| Mönchengladbach | 5,000–7,000 | Rheinische Post | |
| Rostock | 6,500 | Norddeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Siegen | 5,000 | Rheinische Post | |
| Wiesbaden | 15,000 | Hessenschau | |
| Dorsten | 5,000 | ||
| Fürth | 6,000 | Bayerischer Rundfunk | |
| Nordhorn | 6,000 | Ems Vechte Welle | |
| Reutlingen | 5,000 | Südwestrundfunk | |
| Saarbrücken | 7,500 | Südwestrundfunk | |
| Aachen | 20,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Bocholt | 9,000 | BBV, Borkener Zeitung | |
| Borken | 4,500–5,000 | BBV, Borkener Zeitung | |
| Dinslaken | 5,000 | BBV, Borkener Zeitung | |
| Düren | 5,000 | ||
| Elmshorn | up to 6,000 | Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag | |
| Gelsenkirchen | 6,500 | ||
| Eschweiler | 5,000 | Aachener Zeitung | |
| Hildesheim | 7,500 | ||
| Hof (Saale) | 6,000 | ||
| Husum | 5,000 | Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag | |
| Ingolstadt | 6,000 | Die Zeit | |
| Kaiserslautern | 6,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Kiel | 11,500 | Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag | |
| Lübeck | 8,000 | Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag | |
| Mannheim | 20,000 | Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung | |
| Marburg | 16,000 | Hessenschau | |
| Marl | 6,000 | ||
| Moers | 8,000 | ||
| Passau | 6,000 | Passauer Neue Presse | |
| Ravensburg | 9,000 | ||
| Regensburg | 2,000–5,000 | Mittelbayerische Zeitung | |
| Schwabach | 5,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Schweinfurt | 6,500 | Die Zeit | |
| Schwerte | 5,000 | Ruhr Nachrichten | |
| Solingen | 5,000 | Solinger Tageblatt | |
| Düsseldorf | 100,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Bremerhaven | 7,000 | buten un binnen | |
| Dormagen | 5,000 | ||
| Esslingen | 8,000 | ||
| Hamburg | 60,000–100,000 | Die Zeit | |
| Ibbenbüren | 7,000 | Westfälische Nachrichten | |
| Ludwigsburg | 7,000 | ||
| Osnabrück | 25,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Trier | 10,000 | Südwestrundfunk | |
| Bielefeld | 25,000 | taz | |
| Fulda | 8,500–10,000 | Fuldaer Zeitung | |
| Rheine | 7,000 | Münsterländische Volkszeitung | |
| Aalen | 7,000 | Schwäbische Zeitung | |
| Ahaus | 6,000 | Westfälische Nachrichten | |
| Augsburg | 25,000 | Bayerischer Rundfunk | |
| Berlin | 150,000–300,000 | The Guardian | |
| Dresden | 30,000 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Freiburg im Breisgau | over 30,000 | Badische Zeitung | |
| Nuremberg | 25,000 | Der Tagesspiegel | |
| Amberg | 5,000 | Der neue Tag | |
| Bremen | 16,500 | Weser-Kurier | |
| Emsdetten | 5,000 | Emsdettener Volkszeitung | |
| Lübeck | 5,000–9,000 | Norddeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Wesel | 5,000 | Neue Ruhr Zeitung | |
| Frankfurt am Main | 19,000–25,000 | Frankfurter Rundschau | |
| Hameln | over 5,000 | Deister- und Weserzeitung | |
| Rostock | 3,200–5,000 | Tagesschau | |
| Dresden | 5,000 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Munich | 75,000–100,000 | Der Spiegel | |
| Dresden | 13,000 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Münster | 30,000 | Die Zeit | |
| Hanau | 5,000 | Die Zeit | |
| Magdeburg | 3,000–6,000 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Recklinghausen | 5,000 | Recklinghäuser Zeitung | |
| Donauwörth | 5,000 | Augsburger Allgemeine | |
| Essen | 15,000 | RND | |
| Saarbrücken | 7,000 | Saarländischer Rundfunk | |
| Wolfsburg | 7,000 | Braunschweiger Zeitung | |
| Stuttgart | 8,000 | Die Zeit | |
| Willich | 2,500–5,000 | Rheinische Post | |
| Dresden | 20,000 | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | |
| Hamburg | 60,000 | Deutsche Welle | |
| Lübeck | 5,000 | Lübecker Nachrichten | |
| Oldenburg | 7,000 | Nordwest-Zeitung | |
| Paderborn | 5,000 | Westfalen-Blatt, Mindener Tageblatt | |
| Duisburg | 15,000 | Süddeutsche Zeitung | |
| Augsburg | 6,500 | Bayerischer Rundfunk | |
| Bochum/Herne | 5,000 | Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung | |
| Würzburg | 10,000 | Süddeutsche Zeitung | |
| Bremen | 5,000 | Weser-Kurier |
Analysis of 2024 protests
By the last week of January 2024, the protests had become the biggest in Germany since the protests against the Iraq War in 2003. Soon after, according to some researchers, they had become the biggest in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.In early February 2024, sociologist Dieter Rucht said that the speed with which the protests had erupted had generally not been foreseen.
In late January 2024, Tareq Sydiq, a researcher at the Center for Conflict Studies at the University of Marburg said that the protests refuted a common narrative of far-right groups, insofar as they did not originate solely from groups in the left spectrum in major cities. He further stated that the effects of even small protests in rural areas should not be underestimated, pointing to the stronger influence that personal acquaintances had as compared to following protests through media.
The protests in early 2024 saw a much lower participation from the CDU/CSU Christian democrats than from parties further to the left in the political spectrum.
Some observers assessed that it was unclear whether the first wave of protests had triggered changes beyond a somewhat greater awareness of politics and society of connections between the AfD and right-wing extremists. At the end of 2024, the AfD polled only slightly lower than before the protests.
Protests in 2025
A wave of anti-AfD protests in January and February 2025 was compared by observers to the protests of 2024. The new wave of protests, which came shortly before the federal election held on 23 February, was partly in response to a non-binding resolution to restrict immigration which the CDU/CSU had pushed through parliament with the help of the AfD on 29 January 2025. The name Brandmauer-Demos, incorporating a previously used term for blocking the AfD from any influence on parliamentary decisions, was used by some media for the rallies of this wave. On the day before the election, Merz made defiant statements regarding the protests.| Date | Location | Participants |
| 1 Feb 2025 | Hamburg | – |
| 1 Feb 2025 | Stuttgart | |
| 2 Feb 2025 | Berlin | at least |
| 08 Feb 2025 | Munich | – |
| 16 Feb 2025 | Berlin | – |
The Bundestag resolution of 29 January was seen by observers as having created a tense mood that expressed itself not only through peaceful demonstrations, but also in widespread vandalism of CDU election placards, as well as occasional attacks on helpers. In Hamburg, police gave advice to CDU on how to maintain safety at election campaign stands, stopping short of advising them to be cancelled. The party decided to cancel some campaign stands anyway. Sociologist Simon Teune identified what he called a "cascade of protests and counterprotests" that saw each side picking what made it look favourable; he called the criticism by CDU/CSU members of the violence a means of distraction from the fact that "almost a million" had demonstrated against the circumstances of the Bundestag resolution. A large majority of people did not condone threats or physical violence. He further said that spray-painting of local CDU branches and occupations of local offices would affect other parties too and were within the common scope of protests.
Felix Anderl, a researcher at the Center for Conflict Studies at the University of Marburg, stated in an interview in early February that in addition to the wish of people for certain things not to change so close to elections, the strategy of CDU leader Friedrich Merz was adding urgency for the protesters.
After the federal election, the CDU filed a catalogue of 551 parliamentary questions regarding 17 civil society groups, to inquire about the amount of funding that these groups had received from the government, and whether there were indications of misuse of funds. Groups mentioned included Campact, Correctiv, Greenpeace, and Omas gegen Rechts. The filing was described in media as having been motivated by the rallies in response to the 29 January resolution. The CDU said that it had begun drafting it before the election. The filing met with sharp criticism from the addressed NGOs, and also prompted criticism from the social democrats, who were at the time preparing to enter talks with the CDU/CSU about a new grand coalition.
In the wake of the decision by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in early May 2025 that the AfD was a "confirmed right-wing extremist" party, which was challenged in court by the party and resulted in a "standstill commitment" on the side of the BfV until a ruling, a protest in Berlin on 11 May 2025 calling for a ban of the party attracted 4,000 protesters according to police, and 7,500 according to the organizers. Rallies were also scheduled in over 60 other German cites.