BERLIN: Despite drizzling rain, significantly more than the100,000 people announced have gathered in Berlin for a demonstration against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the far right.
More than 150,000 people are currently on site, the police wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday afternoon.The organizers spoke of around 300,000 participants.
A total of 100,000 people had been registered. A human chain was planned under the motto "We are the firewall."
The action against hate and intolerance is backed by an alliance called Hand in Hand of more than 1,300 organizations.
"We want to set an example for solidarity and that we are against discrimination. And that we think it's great when a society with diversity instead of uniformity continues to exist in Germany," said36-year-old Serkan Bingöl, a Berliner with a German passport and secondary school teacher, who had come with a group of refugees.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has described the numerous planned demonstrations against right-wing extremism this weekend as a "strong sign" in favour of democracy and the German Basic Law, as the constitution is known.
"Whether in Eisenach, Homburg or Berlin: in small and large cities across the country, many citizens are coming together to demonstrate against forgetting, against hatred and agitation - this weekend too,"the Social Democrat (SPD) politician wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday.
The German chancellor had recently repeatedly praised the large-scale demonstrations and took part in a rally in Potsdam just outside Berlin himself in January.
For some three weeks now, tens of thousands of people have been taking to the streets all over Germany to protest the far right in general and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in particular.
The protests were triggered by a report by the investigative journalist group Correctiv into a meeting between radical right-wingers and individual politicians from the AfD, the main stream conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the ultra conservative Werte Union in Potsdam in November.
The gathering discussed how to make large numbers of foreign nationals, including asylum seekers, what the group called"non-assimilated citizens" and immigrants with German passports,leave the country, even under duress.
Demonstrations against right-wing extremism are set to continue in many places.
Demonstrations with several thousand participants have also been announced in the northern city of Hanover and Dresden in the east. — dpa
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