Issue of the Week: Human Rights

Published January 30, 2024

The motto in Berlin: “We’re the firewall!”, Der Spiegel, January 30, 2024

Today in Der Spiegel in Berlin, the cover story looks inside the dynamics of the rise of the far-right in Germany, bringing echoes of Hitler and the Nazis, and the resistance of German citizens to this threat to democracy. The great majority of Germans oppose any threat to their democracy and any hint of fascism, but the increasing popularity of the far-right is alarming to many. It also mirrors the concerns globally of the fight between democracy and anti-human rights autocracy. Because of the history in Germany of the Nazi catastrophe that led to the worst global war in history, and the current threat to the international rules put in place after the defeat of fascism, this in-depth story from inside Germay has particular importance. Here it is:

“Can The German People Stop The AfD’s Far-Right Rise?”

Now, hundreds of thousands of normal citizens have taken to the streets

By Matthias Bartsch, Maik Baumgärtner, Rasmus Buchsteiner, Florian Gathmann, Tobias Großekemper, Konstantin von Hammerstein, Kristin Haug, Christine Keck, Levin Kubeth, Tobias Lill, Marius Mestermann, Ann-Katrin Müller, Johannes Müller, Serafin Reiber, Jonas Schaible und Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt

30.01.2024, 09.29 Uhr

Over a Million at Protests

It’s a Tuesday evening in the town of Freising, around 30 kilometers north of Munich. A crowd has assembled on Marienplatz square in the Old Town. A police spokesman will later say that there were around 4,000 demonstrators in a town with only 50,000 inhabitants.

A cowbell can be heard ringing again and again. Some farmers from the region have arrived with tractors and protest placards. “Just because we’re against government measures that endanger our existence doesn’t mean we support the AfD,” says one.

Sabrina Walter, 33, a mother of three, is standing in the crowd. One daughter is holding her hand, two children are waiting at home, along with plenty of chores. But not coming was not an option for her. “I want to send a clear message against the rise of right-wing extremism and the AfD,” she says as a speaker recalls the horrors of the Nazi era.

She doesn’t normally go to demonstrations, so why is she here now? “In my work, I notice that many people with disabilities and their relatives are afraid of the AfD,” says the music teacher, who makes folk music and plays the dulcimer.

As darkness falls, demonstrators hold their mobile phones up in the air with the flashlights on – indeed, this has already become one of the iconic symbols of this wave of protests. It guarantees good images, and the symbolism is catchy: The light is still shining in Germany, there is hope in the darkness.

Similar demonstrations are being held almost every evening in other cities across Germany right now. The weekend before last, more than a million people took to the streets across Germany, most of them in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne and Leipzig. And it looks like that was just the beginning.

Tuesday evening, Darmstadt: 17,000 people. Heilbronn: 8,000 people. Rottenburg am Neckar: 3,500 people. And these are the figures from the police. According to the organizers, there were more everywhere. In comparatively small towns.

Wednesday night, Chemnitz: 2,000 people. Dessau-Rosslau: 800 people.

Organizers registered more than 230 events for the days from January 16-21 alone, all over the country, in major cities and small towns, in the west and in the east.

It’s the start of something. The question is what?

When it goes quiet for a moment on Marienplatz in Freising, Sabrina Walter says: “I want my children to grow up in a free society in which diversity and tolerance are practiced.”

She expresses what is obviously on the minds of many Germans right now. Fear of the AfD, of right-wing extremism. Fear that the dark past could repeat itself. Fears about the future of the liberal, open society.

Where did it come from so suddenly?

A dramatic warning: Memories of the horrors of the Nazi era.

Photos: Markus Hintzen / DER SPIEGEL; Gordon Welters / DER SPIEGEL

For weeks now, the AfD has been polling at 20 percent or more nationwide. This year, there will be local elections in eight federal states, a European election and state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, and the AfD is currently in first place in the polls in all three states. More German voters can imagine casting their ballot for this party, and fewer categorically rule this out – even though the AfD continues to radicalize. Three state associations have already been classified as confirmed right-wing extremist, and the rest of the AfD is a “suspected case” in the eyes of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s extremism-tracking domestic intelligence agency.

But something has changed since the investigative journalism site Correctiv reported about a secret meeting in a Potsdam hotel, where AfD members and right-wing extremists openly discussed plans for “remigration”: They wanted to force people to leave Germany on a large scale, including those who have been granted the right to be here. According to the report, Martin Sellber, an Austrian activist from the far-right Identitarian Movement, named three groups in Potsdam to be targeted: asylum–seekers, foreigners with the right to stay in Germany and “non-assimilated citizens.” That means the target groups would also include people with German passports.

Many of these plans were known; the extreme right-wing ideologues had never hidden them. Björn Höcke, the leader of the state chapter of the AfD in Thuringia, stated at a demonstration of the anti-Muslim group PEGIDA in November: “I’m no longer talking about integration, I’m only talking about remigration.” His goal: He wants to “deport” 200,000 people, whom he calls “illegal migrants” from Germany each year. Höcke once said elsewhere that this requires “well-tempered cruelty.”

And yet it was only the revelation about the conspiratorial Potsdam meeting that really made people broadly aware of this. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets, not only the people who typically show up for protests, but also the much-touted middle class. They are leaving their living rooms and showing their willingness to fight for the first time. Showing resistance.

The motto in Berlin: “We’re the firewall!” Photos: Stefan Boness / DER SPIEGEL

At what was probably the largest event to date, speakers repeatedly shouted this sentence in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin last Sunday: “We’re the firewall!”

But a firewall has to be firm – it can’t have any cracks and it has to be able to withstand enormous loads. You don’t build them in one day.

People from myriad political backgrounds are coming together on the streets right now, but they can’t even agree on a common rallying cry, let alone a list of political demands. Can this spontaneous movement nonetheless somehow give rise to a new force, something lasting?

In other words: Will it be sustainable? And where can it ultimately lead to?

At what was probably the largest event to date, speakers repeatedly shouted this sentence in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin last Sunday: “We’re the firewall!”

But a firewall has to be firm – it can’t have any cracks and it has to be able to withstand enormous loads. You don’t build them in one day.

In other words: Will it be sustainable? And where can it ultimately lead to?

On Saturday morning, around 2,400 people are standing at the Altmarkt square in the city of Bottrop between the bus station, the San Remo ice cream parlor and the Klauser shoe store, which has apparently been closed for some time. There’s a man standing in the crowd with a black cap emblazoned with the brand “Bottroper Beer.”

“You can rely on this city, they can’t get a leg up here,” he says of the AfD party. But he says there’s something special about what’s happening here. Bottrop isn’t the kind of city that is usually known for having large demonstrations. With the exception of the May 1 labor demonstrations and annual carnival festivities, there usually isn’t much activity on the streets.

The fact that things have changed now also has to do with him.

The man is named David Schraven, one of the founding fathers of the investigative journalism platform Correctiv.

“The Nazis want to abolish democracy,” he says. “And the Democrats just understand that they need to organize and embrace the conflict.”

The revelations about the Potsdam meeting made many people realize just how radical the purity fantasies of the extreme right have become. And how concrete. At that moment, they apparently realized just who the AfD and their like-minded comrades would like to drive out of the country. It could be their neighbors or their work colleagues. Their friends. Or they themselves.

Antonio Morais, 56, feels threatened by the AfD. He came to Germany from Portugal as a young man more than 30 years ago. He married here, raised two daughters, works in the automotive industry and lives near Buxtehude. He says he loves the German constitution and loves the country. But that he no longer recognizes it.

Protester Antonio Morais: “They used to talk about sports, but now they are talking badly about migrants.” Foto: Kristin Haug / DER SPIEGEL

In Buxtehude, the center-right Christian Democratic Union, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the Green Party together hold more than three-quarters of the seats on the City Council, while the AfD there is weak. Nevertheless, Morais has observed changes, for example in the fans of HSV, the soccer club from neighboring Hamburg. “They used to talk about sports, but now they are talking badly about migrants,” says Morais. Acquaintances told him he was different from other foreigners, better. Because he works.

“We have to be loud and active and use all means of democracy to protect democracy,” Morais says.

And the rights of people like him.

It Began Decentralized and Small

On January 11, the day after the report about the secret meeting in Potsdam, around 80 people gathered in front of the AfD’s local headquarters in Hamburg, called to action by the youth organizations of the SPD, the Greens, the CDU and the Free Democratic Party. There were already around 2,000 people at a rally the next day. In Berlin, several hundred people marched in front of the Chancellery, while in Mannheim, around 250 people protested against a public appearance made by a member of the German parliament with the AfD. That’s how things began. Decentralized, spontaneous and small.

Countless initiatives, organizations and alliances are behind the protests. Grandmas against the Right, Cologne Is Standing Up, Greenpeace and refugee organizations. Some are organized locally, others nationwide, some have been around for years, others are just getting started.

In order for it to become one of the biggest days of protest in the history of Germany, it needed people who knew how to organize a mass event.

The platform Campact, an association that organizes progressive political campaigns, has been helping out with money. For the major event in Munich, the company transferred 150,000 euros to the organizers, including money for loudspeakers, says co-founder Christoph Bautz. “Nothing is more frustrating than going to a demo for the first time and not hearing anything,” he adds.

The Fridays for Future climate movement is also playing a role on the local level. “We have a lot of know-how,” says Annika Rittmann of the local group in Hamburg. Years in the climate movement have made them experts, protest professionals.

Jaspar Reimann, 21, is one of them. He is involved in Fridays for Future and co-founded the alliance Networking Saxony in Solidarity. Within just a few days, he helped organize more than 10 protests in Saxony – in places including Dresden, Leipzig, Pirna, Torgau and Zittau. “When demonstrations against the right take place, we have to get involved, just like all other civil society players,” he says.

Demonstration organizer Jaspar Reimann: “The real work is only just beginning.” Foto:

Lena Werres

When he realized that something was happening, he says he called people he knew in a number of different cities. He asked if they could register a rally. Experienced activists from the alliance then took care of the rest.

They helped in providing microphones and loudspeakers and set up stages. They sent poster and flyer designs, wrote press releases and considered what to include in the programs for the events. They even write speeches if need be. But it’s the people who have to do the actual protesting.

And they are doing that. Also in places where it can be dangerous.

In Pirna in the eastern state of Saxony, for example, where an AfD candidate was elected mayor and alleged extreme right-wingers in uniform-like clothing attended the rally, 1,000 demonstrators turned up. Everything went well, the masses ensured safety. To keep things that way, the alliance is calling on people from large cities to take part in demonstrations in small towns, too.

The activists are also planning workshops and fundraising campaigns. “We have to help people to network in the long term,” says Reimann. “The real work is only just beginning.”

He knows very well that everything could otherwise be over within just a few weeks. That movements are constantly collapsing almost as quickly as they take shape.

The “Indivisible” Movement Was Followed By Rise of AfD

Societies in turmoil, public addresses of solidarity, agitated protests – and then: nothing. Or almost nothing. It happens all the time. Anton Jäger has written an entire book on this phenomenon. He calls it “hyperpolitics.”

When he speaks into the phone, you can hear the street noise in the background. Jäger, 30, is a historian and a lecturer at Oxford. He speaks while traveling to London.

“In recent years, we have seen very large protests around the world. There have probably never been more protests than there are today. But there are usually no consequences,” says Jäger. He refers to the protests against racism and police violence in the United States in 2020, when an estimated 15 to 25 million people protested.

There have also been waves like this in Germany. After the right-wing extremist murder attack in Mölln, in which Bahide Arslan, Yeliuz Arslan and Ayşe Yılmaz died in November 1992, hundreds of thousands of people form chains and carried lights, first in Munich and then in other cities. And in 2018, hundreds of thousands demonstrated against hatred of refugees and the PEGIDA demonstrations under the slogan “indivisible.”

The chains of lights at the beginning of the 1990s were followed by further attacks on refugee shelters. The “indivisible” movement was followed by the rise of the AfD.

A march with a light chain in Essen in 1993: How long-lasting is the effect of protest? Foto: Hartmut Reeh / picture-alliance / dpa

“Nowadays, it is simply extremely difficult to build a movement that has a lasting impact on society,” says Jäger. “Civil society has changed. Mass organizations are no longer as important as they used to be, parties and trade unions are weakened.” New, simple opportunities for political participation have also emerged. “It doesn’t cost much to set up a petition, to put up an Instagram post. It’s easy and feels like politics, but it fizzles out.”

Does that mean it’s all in vain?

Not necessarily, says Jäger. “What applies to the left or center of society also applies to the right. They are also having a tougher time organizing.”

Disagreements Already Apparent

If a lasting thread is to emerge from the current demonstrations, something along the lines of a common spirit needs to form across the boundaries of the political camps. Efforts need to be made to ensure that the movement doesn’t descend into quarrels right in its infancy. Is that even possible? Disagreements were already apparent almost everywhere on the first weekend – and those first cracks could even lead to a split.

At the rally in Munich on Sunday, January 21, for example, an activist on stage attacked the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) and the current German government’s refugee policies. The German government “just decided to make it a crime to rescue (refugees) at sea,” she railed. An older man in the crowd turned away. “Too leftist,” was his verdict. He appeared to be visibly uncomfortable.

There are cities where the youth wing of the conservative Christian Democrats are also calling for demonstrations. In Freising, politicians with the CSU and the Free Voters spoke at a rally organized by the youth wing of the Green Party.

But things aren’t quite as united elsewhere.

In Frankfurt the weekend before last, former Mayor Petra Roth of the CDU demonstratively took to the stage alongside her successor Mike Josef of the SPD in front of more than 35,000 people. But the local CDU hadn’t called on its people to mobilize and participate. “It’s simple, we weren’t asked by the organizer,” says CDU district manager Thorsten Weber. But that’s only part of the story.

Weber also admitted that they had some problems with the organizers. Among the almost 80 organizations that took part, some attracted attention with their radical statements, like ones made by a local leftist antifa group. In addition, Weber says that the calls for such rallies must be clearly directed “against right-wing extremism – not against the right in general.” The CDU, after all, is also part of the center-right politically.

There is also criticism on the other side of the democratic spectrum. The rallies are too centrist for the tastes of some parts of the political left. The Left Party and others on the far left complain that the suffering of refugees is ignored and that the they aren’t given a voice.

A clear opponent: United in opposition to the AfD

Photos: Markus Hintzen / DER SPIEGEL

People are currently standing together in the squares who look at the world in very different ways, especially with regard to flight and migration, but also in terms of questions of redistribution and social policies. In everyday life, they engage in political conflicts, sometimes harshly. Now, they have to fight together instead of against each other.

Is it possible to resolve this tension?

In Spremberg in the Lower Lusatia region of eastern Germany, Elisabeth Schulze is currently giving this a lot of thought. Around 300 people gathered in the city last weekend, a lot of people for this small town, where the AfD candidate for mayor in 2021 won almost 40 percent in the run-off election.

Schulze says she saw “a lot of people who wouldn’t normally have attended.” She says she noticed a conspicuous number of older people and school-age children. Indeed, the principal of one high school even sent out information about the rally.

Pastor Elisabeth Schulze: “There were a lot of people who wouldn’t normally attend.” Foto: Pawel Sonowski / DER SPIEGEL

Schulze, 35, has been a pastor in the Protestant community for three years and is a co-organizer of the demonstrations. In June of last year, her church was attacked with an incendiary device. A rainbow flag was hanging from the building at the time. She says she has to weigh each step carefully.

That includes making an effort to avoid offending AfD supporters. It doesn’t help to describe the AfD as a Nazi party, says Schulze. She can’t afford to say the kinds of things in public that Hendrik Wüst does, the CDU governor of North Rhine-Westphalia. “We are trying to keep the divides here as small as possible.”

That means that leftist chants are not helpful. Some of the older demonstration participants were bothered by the classic anti-fascist chant “alerta, alerta, antifascista!” Within the Spremberg alliance, discussions are underway as to what should be chanted at the next demonstration. Perhaps it will help. Perhaps fewer members of the centrist middle class will feel alienated. And maybe a few more people might even show up.

Schulze says that some participants even voiced an interest in some form of long-term involvement. Just maybe, she believes, it could be the start of something larger.

Patrick Telligmann, 38, a staff member for Green Party state parliamentarian Carla Kniestedt, is standing on a small, cobblestone lane in the town of Templin and looking at a derelict workshop, its windows broken. It was here, in this building, that neo-Nazis beat Bernd Köhler to death in 2008.

At the time, the democratic parties decided to join forces to stand up to the NPD and other right-wing extremist parties.

Party members from the Left Party to the center-right CDU would appear together at festivals. Templin residents held counterdemonstrations in 2016 and 2017 to stand up to right-wing extremist marches – until the extremist shows of force began abating. Last year, another festival of democracy was held on the town square, in part as a reaction to the AfD summer festival. The youth club of the evangelical church was one of the organizers, and once again, the Left Party, Greens, SPD and CDU joined forces.

But even this show of unity hasn’t been enough to prevent the rise of the AfD in Templin. The party now has as many seats on the city council as the CDU or SPD and its roots in town are much stronger than the NPD’s were many years ago. Telligmann was thus relieved to see the strength of the protests last week. More than 500 people showed up last Sunday – in a town with a population of just 16,000.

Important representatives of Templin society have long been part of chatgroups organized to combat right-wing radicalism. Recently, says Telligmann, those groups have added quite a few new members: Since the news about the secret meeting in Potsdam hit the headlines, the groups have grown by around 20 percent.

In Templin, the urge to do something has found solid structures that have been growing for several years. Organization makes protests possible, and protests strengthen organization.

You can’t, for example, just register the next rally and hope that more than 50 people show up, says Ilona Frank, one of the co-initiators. “We have to avoid ruining what we have achieved.”

People Are Asking How They Can Take Part

It is a concern on the minds of organizers and initiators around the country: How can the initial surge be leveraged into a lasting movement?

In Baden-Württemberg, mayors across the state joined forces to publish an open letter: “Right-wing extremist currents are trying to undermine our democratic order. As local politicians, we want to take a stand.” The letter has already attracted 31 signatories from across the state and includes members of parties from across the spectrum.

In Thuringia, the state association of mobile counseling teams against right-wing extremism, which is headquartered in the capital city of Erfurt, says that the number of civil society activities began rising last summer. “New initiatives and alliances are being formed and the networking meetings in preparation for this election year have been well attended,” says Felix Steiner, the association spokesman.

Steiner has also seen a greater willingness from those in business and in the culture sector to become involved – a development that has accelerated in recent days.

It is a tendency seen in Brandenburg as well, says Markus Klein, the head of Demos, an institute that provides mobile counseling. He says that more and more leading figures from the business community are getting involved as well, people with influence in their towns. “There are tangible reasons for the companies there. They are simply unable to find workers anymore.”

The mobile counseling teams operated by the cultural office in Saxony also report a shift: “The first democratic citizens’ initiatives are considering putting up their own candidates for municipal elections and are asking for advice.”

A sea of mobile phone lamps in Dresden: the iconography of the protest wave Foto: Gordon Welters / DER SPIEGEL

In Germany’s southwest, in the Baden-Württemberg town of Offenburg, Jenny Haas is active in the initiative “Aufstehen gegen Rassismus,” or Stand Up to Racism. They offer tours through concentration camp memorial sites, maintain Stolpersteine – the sidewalk markers denoting where Jewish people lived prior to the Holocaust – provide assistance to refugees and disseminate information about the AfD and right-wing extremist networks.

She admits to having been extremely frustrated until recently. “For years, we have been issuing warning after warning, but nobody listened.” Others who work with her agree. But now, she says, the complacent middle has woken up. “The demonstrations have recharged our batteries. It has really given us a boost.”

Last weekend, Jenny Haas spoke in front of 5,000 people. “When I saw the square filling up with people loyal to the constitution, in a place that in recent years has been filled with enemies to the constitution, I became really emotional.”

Finally, she says, people with migration backgrounds could once again see that a majority of Germans was prepared to protect them.

Haas says that more and more people were trying to get involved or asking for tips about what they could do. But she also believes that the ultimate fate of this current wave has a lot to do with the CDU, which sees itself as a centrist power.

Flowers and rainbows: symbols of diversity

Photos: Markus Hintzen / DER SPIEGEL; Gordon Welters / DER SPIEGEL

And she is right: The party does play a key role when it comes to how broad and powerful the movement will be. There are Christian Democrats who have sought to distance themselves from the movement. But in other places, it seems as though the CDU feels empowered. Last Sunday, Saxony Governor Michael Kretschmer of the CDU spoke to demonstrators saying: “Nobody here is going to be deported,” he said. He recalled the “horrific decades of National Socialism,” and then said: “We never again want something like that!”

His representative at the Saxony state representation in Berlin, Conrad Clemens, recently posted a photo of himself at a demonstration. “We have to take a clear stand against this freakshow,” he wrote, before listing off a number of right-wing extremist groups that included the AfD. It would be difficult to be clearer than that.

Pretty much all senior CDU leaders have expressed support for the demonstrators in one way or another, including party chair Friedrich Merz. “The ‘silent’ majority has spoken and made clear that they want to live in a country that is cosmopolitan and free,” he said last weekend.

Another member of the CDU leadership said: “Those are our people who are taking to the streets.”

Unease Within the AfD

The reaction to all this from within the AfD has betrayed significant anxiety. Some have blustered about falsified photos, while others have ranted about paid demonstrators. But Frank Haussner, whom Björn Höcke has joined for a number of demonstrations in the past, speaks openly about what he calls “mass demonstrations.” Haussner is a Reichsbürger and admits to having a connection to Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss , who is currently in investigative detention on suspicions of leading a terrorist cell. On the sidelines of a Tuesday rally in the Thuringian town of Zeulenroda, Haussner said that the images of the nationwide demonstrations have “led to significant unease in our circles and, for some, great disappointment.”

He verbalized that which the AfD is officially loathe to accept. But strategists from the New Right who are close to the party have already begun cautioning against panic. The identitarian journalist Benedikt Kaiser, for example, warned on a podcast belonging to an extremist right-wing outlet in Austria that there is a danger of “hysterical actionism” from the AfD.

Will the demonstrations ultimately cost the AfD votes at the ballot box? Examples from other European countries show that such movements can indeed have an effect come election day.

Where the Demonstrations Have Already Changed Things

Antonis Ellinas is sitting in front of his computer in a T-shirt, and behind him, the window is cracked open. It is 20 degrees Celsius on this winter day here in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia. Ellinas is a political science professor at the University of Cyprus, and he has spent years conducting research into the extreme right – looking into both their networks and into protest movements against them. His main focus is Greece.

In the years following the financial crisis, a party called Golden Dawn rose to prominence in the country, a movement that was even more radical than most other right-wing extremist parties in Europe. It was militant, eager for violence and determined to dominate the streets.

Ellinas and his colleague Iasonas Lamprianou analyzed how Golden Dawn performed in parliamentary elections in 2012, 2015 and 2019 in places where there were protests against the party versus areas where there were no protests. The two researchers took into account city populations and the fact that the party was particularly successful in areas with more migrants and among younger voters.

The result: “Demonstrations can reduce support for right wing-extremist parties,” says Ellinas. The phenomenon was particularly clear in the first years. “Even though the protest movement wasn’t particularly well organized, broad or large. It came mostly out of the radical left but managed to keep the protests going for a long period of time.”

A rally in Frankfurt: Disagreement among democrats

Photos: Hartmut Müller-Stauffenberg / action press; Ingmar Björn Nolting / DER SPIEGEL

Researchers in Italy and the U.S. have reached similar conclusions – as they have in France, where protests in 2002 hamstrung the campaign of the extreme right wing presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. In places where the protests were largest, voters were more likely to vote for his opponent Jacques Chirac. Le Pen’s positions received less support.

But the Greek case is instructive for another reason as well. Ultimately, it was the state that delivered the decisive blow to Golden Dawn by launching a legal investigation and prosecuting its leaders. “Greece had never before seen itself as a strong democracy, but that changed for the first time thanks to pressure from the streets,” says Ellinas.

Today, he says, violence has dropped noticeably and the extreme right in the country is fragmented. The conservatives now dominate the party system in the country, but only managed to secure their current position by clearly distancing themselves from the extreme right.

Politicians Seem Surprised and Unprepared

Is that what is now going to happen in Germany? Will pressure from the streets have an effect on election results? Germany, after all, has always seen itself as a strong democracy. Will calls for an AfD ban now grow stronger?

The debate has been ongoing for quite some time. CDU parliamentarian Marco Wanderwitz, who used to be in charge of eastern Germany issues for the federal government in Berlin, is a major advocate for just such a ban. And the number of supporters is slowly growing. Around 50 members of federal parliament now support an examination of a possible prohibition.

But the leaders of the three parties in the current governing coalition in addition to the heads of the CDU and of the CSU have thus far refrained from embracing the idea. A ruling by the Higher Administrative Court in Münster is expected in March which will determine whether the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic security agency, is permitted to classify the AfD as a nationwide, right-wing extremist threat – a categorization that would allow the agency to wield intelligence tools, such as spies inside the party, to search for information. Until then, say leaders of the coalition parties in parliament, senior coalition representatives aren’t likely to take a position.

What might happen then?

Important conservatives have already begun positioning themselves against a party ban. “The debate about banning the AfD puts us on difficult legal terrain and is politically dangerous,” says Thorsten Frei, a senior conservative in parliament.

The FDP is also wary of such a move. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann believes that if the outcome of any effort to ban the AfD isn’t completely certain, then starting the process at all would be a huge risk. And when can you ever be certain in front of a court?

The SPD, for its part, is still in the process of coming up with a position on the issue. While inside the Green Party, a number of lawmakers are open to the idea of a ban, but party leadership has been eager to avoid loose chatter, fearing that open support could harm the movement more than it helps it.

Green Party politician Misbah Khan, who focuses on domestic issues, says: “The AfD must be viewed as an organized and potentially violent element of the right-wing scene.” As such, a close examination should be undertaken as to whether the party is unconstitutional. “If it is, then a ban is the next logical step.”

Doreen Denstädt, the Green Party justice minister in Thuringia, puts it this way: “I expect the federal government to go after anti-constitutional elements with all the tools at its disposal – including bans.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the entire AfD has to be banned. Some are in favor of first taking a closer look at the party’s youth chapter, the Junge Alternative. From a legal point of view, it is structured as an association rather than as a political party, which many lawyers believe would make it easier to impose a ban.

Another approach would be that of drying up the AfD’s funding. The current governing coalition is taking a look at how the authorities could better monitor money flows from outside the country, and is receiving support in the effort from the opposition. “It is important that the German government is concentrating its attention on the issue of money flows, particularly when it comes to the influence wielded by foreign countries over the AfD,” says Roderich Kiesewetter, a security expert with the CDU. The legal powers of the intelligence agencies must be adjusted, he says.

Broadly speaking, though, the impression is that the protests caught the democratic parties unawares. Currently, they have little to offer the demonstrators. Even though they are profiting from the movement.

Parties Report Rising Membership Numbers

The Green Party says 2,600 people have joined since the beginning of the year, and January hasn’t even ended yet. Last year, each month saw average growth of 700 members. And Germany’s other democratic parties have also seen positive trends. “The number of new memberships grew noticeably in the second week of January,” says a spokesperson for the Bavarian conservative party CSU. And a CDU spokesperson says: “In recent weeks, we have seen a higher-than-average number of membership applications. The number is significantly higher than the same period last year.” SPD General Secretary Keven Kühnert says: “We are seeing a significant increase in party membership at the moment.” The Left Party also says more people have joined of late.

Now, it will be up to the parties to make something of their new members. And up to the government to show the people on the street that it takes their fears seriously and is prepared to do something. That it is as willing to stand up for democracy as the demonstrators across the country are.

A protest in Eberswalde near Berlin: A number of anti-AfD demonstrations have also been organized in the eastern German states where the party has the most supporters.

Photos: Sachelle Babbar / ZUMA Press / action press; Gordon Welters / DER SPIEGEL

In order to continue in the long term, the people at the rallies, in the organizational offices and local initiatives must get the feeling that they and their concerns are being seen and heard.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier began focusing on the strengthening of democracy several years ago. Last week, he made a visit to Vietnam, in part to speak about how Germany might be able to attract more skilled workers from the country.

Normally, a head of state refrains from commenting on daily events back home during trips overseas. But these days are anything but normal. On Wednesday, Steinmeier made an exception and made a statement from Ho Chi Minh City: “The democratic center of our society has awakened and recognizes its responsibility.”

For this week, he has invited business leaders, trade union leaders and heads of associations to his office for a democracy summit.

A start has been made. Now, it must be continued.