Berlin, 26 January 2025 (dpa/MIA) - Tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the growing influence of Germany's far right at a rally in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Saturday evening.

The protesters used lamps and their mobile phones to form what organizers described as a "sea of lights" directed against the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The police in the German capital put turnout at around 35,000; however, organizers estimated the crowd size at 100,000 people.

The rally was held a month before Germans go to the polls in a general election in which the anti-immigration and anti-EU AfD is expected to achieve a strong result.

Protesters want firewall against AfD to stay

Christoph Bautz, founder of the political pressure group Campact and one of the initiators of the demonstration in Berlin, demanded that the mainstream parties preserve their long-standing "firewall" against working with the AfD.

He made a direct appeal to conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who is the front-runner in the February 23 election and has vowed a migration crackdown should he become chancellor.

Bautz said that if Merz makes common cause with the AfD to push drastically tougher migration measures through the parliament, then "an uprising of decent people will break out in this country."

Merz has repeatedly said his CDU/CSU bloc will not form a government with the AfD. But he ignited a furore this week when he suggested he was willing to accept the party's support in parliament in order to get his migration policies passed.

Many of Merz's critics say that after this change of tack, they now have little faith in his pledge not to enter into a formal coalition with the AfD after the election.

The demonstrators rallying in front of the Brandenburg Gate chanted: "We are the firewall."

Many families with children were present. Several posters were directed against the Alternative for Germany, such as the slogan: "There is no alternative to the AfD being stupid."

'Nobody likes Nazis except Merz'

There were similar protests in western Germany on Saturday.

Police estimated that around 40,000 people took to the streets in Cologne on Saturday, where authorities had expected only around 5,000 demonstrators.

Many placards were directed not only against the AfD, but also explicitly against Merz.

Some demonstrators carried signs reading "Nobody likes Nazis except Merz."

Demonstration in Aschaffenburg

In Aschaffenburg in Bavaria, police said some 3,000 people turned out there on Saturday to warn against a shift to the right.

On Wednesday afternoon, a 2-year-old boy and a man were killed in a stabbing attack in a park in Aschaffenburg.

A refugee from Afghanistan, who was previously known to the police, was taken into custody for the attack. Authorities said the 28-year-old should have been deported some time ago given his past history.

The stabbing led to a sharpening of the immigration debate ahead of the parliamentary elections next month.

Scholz keeps up attacks on Merz

Chancellor Olaf Scholz continued his attacks against Merz at a campaign rally for his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who are trailing behind Merz's conservatives and the AfD for third place in opinion polls.

"There must be no cooperation with extreme right-wing parties in Germany, at any time or any place," said Scholz at an SPD election campaign event in the western city of Wiesbaden.

Scholz said he had believed Merz when he said he did not want to work with the AfD. "If the opposition leader now says that he could imagine introducing laws here with the support of the AfD, then I don't know what I can still believe."

Scholz also referred to Austria, where the head of the far-right Freedom Party, Herbert Kickl, could soon become chancellor in a coalition with the more mainstream conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP).

"That must not happen in Germany. We were united in Germany and we must remain united."

The Social Democrats and the Greens also have legal concerns about Merz's border measures, especially his proposal to reject all people without valid documents and put permanent controls at all border crossings.

Scholz said that his government had taken many measures that had led to a reduction in irregular migration and an increase in repatriations.

He said Merz's proposals go beyond what is set out in Germany's constitution, known as the Basic Law, as well as European Union treaties.

Merz on Saturday rejected the arguments that his demands are not tenable under EU law.

As for potentially getting the support of the AfD in the Bundestag, he said: "A right decision does not become wrong just because the wrong people agree."

He told a campaign rally in Neuhof, a town north-east of Frankfurt, that he would rather work with parties like the SPD and Greens to find solutions to Germany's migration problems.

"The parties in the political centre must now show that they are able to solve the problems," he said.

He was once again adamant about not governing with the AfD, saying: "I will neither conduct coalition negotiations with this party nor form a government."

Photo: EPA