this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Original title: Tens of thousands pack into a protest in Hamburg against Germany’s far right

Edit: The protest was ended early because the location was too small for that many people, raising concerns that e.g. paramedics couldn't quickly reach people in the centre of the crowd in case of a medical emergency.
Originally, the protest was supposed to take place in front of the town hall and not at the Jungfernstieg Boulevard, but the far right Alternative for Germany party had called on short notice for a meeting of the state legislature in the town hall. During such a meeting, protests are banned within the vicinity of it for security reasons.

top 45 comments
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[–] herrwoland 137 points 10 months ago

It's really nice to see this kind of news. Proud of Germans!

[–] eran_morad 106 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fascist swine should cower in fear.

[–] NABDad 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Kind of looks like they did.

[–] blanketswithsmallpox 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Now send Germany to America. Without the English this time please.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

Instructions unclear, established German Paraguay.

[–] DreamAccountant 81 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Every time there's a nazi rally, this many people need to show up to it. Until the nazis realize they're heavily outnumbered by people that know the nazis want to kill, torture, and rob them all. No matter where they go. Every single time. Until they don't come out anymore. Nazis don't want to get along. They want to rob, torture, and kill you, your family, and everyone you've ever known.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And the problem is that they vastly over evaluate their numbers, ex: the idiots that occupied Parliament Hill in Canada that say they were 2 millions when that's the population of the whole region and when looking at drone footage of the busiest days they were max 5 to 10k.

[–] Smoogs 2 points 10 months ago

5 to 10 k is still too much for my comfort.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I mean, a fundamental problem in the German state is how many fascists are simply embedded within the security state.

A German interior ministry report says a three-year-long review found 327 employees linked to right-wing extremism.

What the Germans are dealing with is a wide-spread network of sleeper cells and fascist sympathizers who present as liberal on paper while endorsing far-right policies in disguise. Everything from the crack down on migrants in the name of religious liberty, the shuttering of nuclear power plants to the benefit of the fossil fuel industry, and the state-led privatization of housing and banking and mass media has congealed the German state into increasingly fascist forms.

Germany is playing a big game of Secret Hitler, and it won't be much longer until some new Hindenburg is handing the reins over to a Millennial Era ultra-nationalist in the name of economic growth and domestic business interests. Same shit happened in Brazil under Bolsonaro not long ago. And Turkey with Erdogan. Same thing is happening in Argentina, Italy, and Hungary.

Protests in the streets are great. But... at some point the goal is to be in a position of power, not simply banging at the gates from the outside.

I'm worried that there's a fixation on the clowns and chuds doing hate parades and an ignorance of the folks already behind a desk who are tearing out the wiring of German democracy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What the Germans are dealing with is a wide-spread network of sleeper cells and fascist sympathizers who present as liberal on paper while endorsing far-right policies in disguise.

So, typical establishment liberals?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 1 points 10 months ago

Just another day in Western Demonocracy.

[–] Daft_ish 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This is why the media is failing us. Trumps words mean nothing to me. Show us his policy. Show us the GOPs voting records. Not entertaining enough???? Get fucked, I hate you infotainment assholes.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Maybe we can compromise with them and only rob, torture and kill a little bit.

[–] Lemminary 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Mmhmm! Found the centrist. 🧐

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Once they get rid of the people they don't like they'll stop. There is definitely no situation where they come after me or the people closest to me.

[–] militaryintelligence 3 points 10 months ago

Maybe we could appease them somehow. What's Poland up to these days

[–] [email protected] 61 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm an American, and for whatever weight that carries, I'm proud of Germany!

[–] TonyOstrich 22 points 10 months ago

Considering our obesity rates, quite a lot!

[–] [email protected] 42 points 10 months ago

And today we will continue, with protests announced in over 90 cities.
LIBERTE
EGALITE
FCK AFD

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (3 children)

If the Germans are so anti far right, why do they not vote anti far right during the elections?

[–] [email protected] 88 points 10 months ago

This is Hamburg and they do in Hamburg. The AFD barely made it over the 5% hurdle in the last election.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago (1 children)

In the last national election, the AfD got 10% of the vote, relatively low. Currently, they are polling at 23%, considerably higher, but far from a majority. The centre right CDU is currently leading in the polls at 31%. Together, these two parties would have a majority.

Officially, the CDU rules out any cooperation with the AfD, but such cooperation has already taken place on the local level without the local CDU politicians involved getting kicked out of the party. Overall, the CDU is probably the only major party in Germany that might consider a coalition with the AfD.

Internally, the CDU appears divided on the issue. Their current leader once talked about allowing cooperation on the local level, but backpedaled after immediate criticism from within the party (source). When polled, 53% of CDU supporters opposed any coalition with the AfD on the state level, with only 36% supporting such a coalition and the remainder being unsure (German source). I haven't found any polls regarding the local or the national level, but I'm relatively certain that support for a coalition on the national level won't be any higher among CDU supporters.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Friendly reminder that the nazis never won a majority the first time around.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As I said, there's a danger that the centre right might enable our contemporary Nazis. Hopefully, they listen to the majority of their voters who oppose this.

At least Daniel Günther, CDU governor of Schleswig-Holstein, the state where the CDU has its largest state level majority (43%), is quite outspoken against the AfD. While he clearly belongs to the most centrist wing of the party, his 2022 reelection victory still gives him considerable weight within the party. It also shows that cooperation with the Greens can be a winning strategy for the CDU, at least in the more populous former West Germany.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They should be intimately familiar with the results of the last time conservatives turned to fascists to try and cling to power.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Listening to what those people say on the news, I get the feeling they are familiar with this, they know it, but they don't care because they feel like they can profit from it. CxU parties are very far from what the "Christian" in their name would suggest.

[–] TheGrandNagus 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I mean, the Nazis didn't, but the Nazis + another fascist party did, so the issue wasn't a shortage of people who vote for fascist parties. Fascists were the majority.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The best part about climate change is that as more extreme methods are needed to combat it as we twiddle our collective thumbs, the reaction and shift rightwards will be even bigger.

You saw how mad they got when they thought they were going to loose their hamburgers. Imagine when they literally loose their hamburgers.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

I think it's more that the shift to the extremes will be bigger. Whether the shift is more to the left or to the right is determined by community building and media presence.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Why are we letting the hamburgers loose? It’s harder to eat them that way.

[–] militaryintelligence 2 points 10 months ago

Perfect artificial meat, call it the Freedom Burger, pay Trump to endorse it. Problem solved

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Gotta say, wish we had this problem over here in the UK.

[–] TheGrandNagus 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On the positive side of things, the UK is currently doing the opposite of most of mainland Europe - whereas mainland Europe seems to be swinging right, the UK is swinging left.

Roll on the 2024 general election.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The electorate is for sure heading left, if you look into it though, our parties are not. The Labour Party (Clear favourites to win next time) have been gradually sliding right over the last 5 years, adopting more centrist and centre-right policies in an attempt to win over right-wing voters.

Many on the left in the UK are incredibly unhappy, with good reason. The leader of Labour described his current strategy as a “under-new-management, eliminate-the-left” approach.

That's not to say that things wouldn't be better, of course, just not ideal for many left-wing voters out there looking for progressive change.

[–] june 4 points 10 months ago

Following our example in America I see.

Good luck!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Same over here across the pond.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 1 points 10 months ago

Replace anti-far right with pro-XL bully and its the same picture.

[–] rainerloeten 21 points 10 months ago

It was so crowded actually, that most people didn't even realize the protest was canceled.

Also the cell network (both internet and SMS/calls) was completely down, so meeting up or getting information was nearly impossible

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

The protest ended when the Third Estate realized they had left their guillotines at home.

[–] TheBat 11 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


A prominent member of the Identitarian Movement, Austrian citizen Martin Sellner, presented his “remigration” vision for deportations.

In Hamburg, police said that some 50,000 gathered on a lakeside promenade Friday afternoon, while organizers put the figure at 80,000 and said many people weren’t able to squeeze into the venue, German news agency dpa reported.

Kazim Abaci of Unternehmer ohne Grenzen (Businesspeople without Borders), a group that was one of the organizers, said that “we have to end the demonstration early,” citing safety concerns and saying that the fire service was unable to get through the crowd.

“The message to AfD and its right-wing networks is: We are the majority and we are strong because we are united and we are determined not to let our country and our democracy be destroyed for a second time after 1945,” the year of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher told the crowd.

AfD has sought to distance itself from the extremist meeting, saying it had no organizational or financial links to the event, that it wasn’t responsible for what was discussed there and members who attended did so in a purely personal capacity.

National polls currently show AfD in second place behind the main center-right opposition bloc and ahead of the parties in the unpopular government.


The original article contains 384 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 44%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] disconnectikacio 7 points 10 months ago

putin wont be happy

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Good to see.

[–] CharlesDarwin 4 points 10 months ago

Can we organize a few of these in the United States?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Siamo tutti antifascisti