ERFURT, July 4: Thousands protested against Germany's far-right AfD and blocked roads to its annual conference in the eastern city of Erfurt on Saturday, where the party re-elected the two leaders who have overseen its rise as a national force.
Protesters from unions, civil society groups and left-wing parties gathered as large numbers of police, including reinforcements from across Germany, were deployed ahead of the AfD's two-day conference. AfD stands for Alternative for Germany.
Watched by police in riot gear, protesters sat in rows to block highways and roads leading to the convention centre where the meeting is being held. Police estimated around 15,000 people joined demonstrations in and around the eastern city.
The AfD launched the event by re-electing party chiefs Alice Weidel and TinoChrupalla, under whose leadership the AfD has surged to the top of national opinion polls ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives.
The opening speeches mocked and lambasted the protesters as anti-democratic. They revelled in the AfD's rise that could see the party taking power in regional elections this year for the first time, while painting their mainstream rivals as tired, out of touch and leading Germany into decline.
"For this remains our last chance to save our country," Weidel said. "More and more people in this country want to support us in the fight against Germany’s decline, in the fight for our fatherland and for our identity."
Underscoring the party's hard line on immigration, a song called "Send them back" played on the AfD's social media stream minutes before the convention opened. Inside the convention centre, vintage-style cards were on sale with slogans such as "YOU will be deported".
BjoernHoecke, seen as one of the party's most radical and controversial leaders, offered a mix of nostalgia and invective, even pointing to the state of Germany's motorway toilets as an example of national malaise.
"A great Germany is a Germany where one need not fear taking a walk through the city park in the evening. A great Germany is a country where apartment keys can be left hanging on the outside of the door," he said.
The conference comes ahead of elections in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern that the AfD hopes will help pave the way for success at national level, a prospect that has alarmed its opponents.
"We want to make it clear that we simply won't tolerate this, that fascism is on the rise here in Germany," said Georg Becker, a spokesperson for Widersetzen ("Resist"), an anti-AfD umbrella group behind the Erfurt protests.
Formed more than a decade ago, the AfD has deployed a mix of nationalist rhetoric, calls for tougher immigration policies and appeals to voters frustrated with successive governments and years of economic stagnation.
"Criminals and illegal migrants have no place in Germany any more," Weidel said. "We will deport them rigorously, because our country deserves better."
Opponents accuse the AfD of promoting racist policies and attitudes incompatible with Germany's democratic values, and say it would threaten the country's constitutional order. Mainstream parties have ruled out any cooperation, under a so-called "firewall" strategy designed to isolate the party and keep it out of coalition governments.
AfD leaders deny opposing Germany's democratic foundations and earlier this year won a court injunction ordering the domestic intelligence service to suspend a previous classification of the party as "extremist".
Recent polls put AfD support as high as 29%, compared with around 22% for Merz's CDU/CSU conservatives.
Its strongest support comes from the former communist east, where surveys show the highest levels of voter disillusionment with the traditional party system.
Merz has made it his mission to reverse the rise of the AfD, which has been locked out of power as all other parties have refused to cooperate with it.
The AfD says it is a conservative force occupying the space once held by Merz's Christian Democrats before former chancellor Angela Merkel a decade ago allowed millions of refugees and asylum seekers into Germany.
But critics point to AfD politicians downplaying Nazi crimes and links to banned right-wing extremist groups.
BjoernHoecke -- considered one of the AfD's most radical figures -- had pushed a controversial motion at this weekend's congress to revise the party's so-called "incompatibility list".�"AGENCIES
