The farmers' association officially distances itself from the right-wing attempts to exploit the protest. But extremist tones can be heard.

Farmers protest in Berlin in front of the Victory Column: here in Pegida style Photo: Kay Nietfeld/dpa

SEDAN taz | It is the AfD that is seeking support in Monday's farmers' protest in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Several members of the Bundestag attended and the president of the party's youth group, classified as far-right, Hannes Gnauck, was also seen. Leaflets and lubricated sandwiches are distributed in a minibus with the AfD logo. The party assures us that we are on the side of the farmers. “The yard is on fire, the traffic lights are out.”

Others are also trying to rejoin Monday's farmers' protest, which will reach its preliminary end with the big demonstration. The small far-right party “Free Saxony” produces videos on site. The Corona protest party “Die Basis” has also prepared a table. For this purpose, several right-wing media activists are there.

Already at the beginning of the farmers' protest week, the far-right scene mobilized strongly and sensed its opportunity, from the “Free Saxons” to the “III. Way” to identity leader Martin Sellner. A “day of resistance” was declared, combined with hopes of a general strike and fantasies of overthrow.

And the AfD also supported the protest from the beginning and used it to attack the traffic lights. “We'll see each other on the street,” explained AfD head Björn Höcke, although his party states in its basic program that it “generally rejects subsidies,” including those for agriculture.

Rukwied sees the protests “cornered by the right”

The president of the farmers' association, Joachim Rukwied, had already distanced himself from right-wing extremists at the beginning of the week of protests. On Monday he complained on stage that he had attempted to “push the protest to the right” to “delegitimize it.” “That didn't work because farmers are honest democrats.”

In Berlin, however, some banners and slogans sow doubts about this loyalty to democracy. There, the dispute over agricultural subsidies is almost no longer discussed, but traffic lights and politics in general are brutally attacked. “Stop the government madness” or “break the green wave,” he says. Another shows photographs of Greens Ricarda Lang and Cem Özdemir, as well as Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who are described as “rats” who must be “get rid of”.

This is mixed with familiar sounds from the Pegida protests. “Germany first,” reads a flag. “Our country, our farmers,” on a sign. “We are the people,” the participants chant over and over again. Several German flags are flying. There are complaints that there is money for refugees or for arms shipments to Ukraine. What is clear is that it is not only farmers who are joining the protest.

AfD man allowed to speak in Stuttgart

At the beginning of the protests, gallows or flags of the rural popular movement were also displayed, which in the 1920s carried out attacks against offices, which the farmers' association also opposed. But how difficult it is to differentiate yourself in concrete terms was demonstrated, for example, in Stuttgart. There, AfD man Dirk Spaniel was able to speak on a farmers' association stage, as a private citizen, as the organizers stressed. Spaniel then praised the “resistance against the government” and spread the appearance with the AfD logo on social media. However, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) also thanked the farmers' association on Monday for distancing itself from the far right.

But they also tried to use the protests for their own actions. Right-wing extremists also moved to block Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck's (Greens) holiday ferry in Schlüttsiel. In Gera they organized a protest march, in Cottbus it was the AfD, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and North Rhine-Westphalia it was former Corona protesters. And in Wittstock the “III. Weg” took to the streets with his own demonstration in favor of the “peasant class” and against the “BRD system.” In Hilchenbach (North Rhine-Westphalia), the party placed a gallows with a protest sign on the balcony of its office.

In Dresden, the “Free Saxons” even managed to gather thousands of people in a demonstration. One of its speakers openly stated that it was no longer about agricultural subsidies, but about “finally ending this policy.” There were few farmers there, but several artisans lined up. Two days later, at a farmers' association demonstration in Dresden, right-wing extremists were repulsed, in what the “free Saxons” described as an “eclat.” And Höcke also complained that the protest was “divisive.”

The identitarian Sellner, for his part, had called for strategically remaining in the background for the moment to counter the impression that the protests were being abused. But on Monday he made it clear again that it's not just farmers he cares about. “Today people are demonstrating,” it's about his future, he explained in a post about the Berlin demonstration. The protests are “massive” and farmers “still have a lot to do.”

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution only sees “beneficiaries”

The Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution recently declared that the farmers' protests were “predominantly of a non-extremist character.” Also in Dresden some participants left the protest when the right-wing extremists spoke. North Rhine-Westphalia's Office for the Protection of the Constitution also told taz on Monday that extremists had only participated in the protests “in isolated cases as profiteers.” There is no evidence that farmers are “reacting positively to extremist support.” “There are currently no signs” of a radicalization of the protests.

On Monday it was not only clear that some farmers were receptive to far-right slogans. And organized right-wing extremists are latching onto the issue. The far-right magazine Compact is already announcing a “Farmers' Ash Wednesday” for mid-February in Gera. And the “free Saxons” also announced: “We will not relent.” The farmers' protest is “the beginning of a new wave of protests.” However, it is an announcement that far-rightists have made many times.