BERLIN: At least 160 000 thousand demonstrators converged on Berlin Sunday (Jan 2), said police, to protest the norm-shattering overtures by Germany’s conservatives’ toward the far right.
Organisers said 200 000 people had turned out to denounce the breach by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Germany’s unwritten agreement not to work with the far right at the national level, in place since World War II.
After the rally kicked off just outside the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament building, some protesters chanted slogans including “Shame on you CDU” before moving on towards the party’s headquarters.
Others accused the CDU and its leader Friedrich Merz of having made a “pact with the devil” by seeking the backing of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to pass an anti-immigration bill.
“(We want to) make as much noise as possible to call for the self-described ‘democratic’ parties to protect this democracy,” protester Anna Schwarz told AFP.
The 34 year old said she was joining a political rally for the first time as “we can no longer avert our gaze, it’s too serious”.
The CDU’s canvassing for the far-right AfD’s support in parliament last week sparked widespread fury in Germany, less than a month ahead of a key snap federal election.
In doing so Merz, frontrunner ahead of the Feb 23 vote, broke the decades-old “firewall” set up in the aftermath of the horrors wrought by Nazi Germany.
