At least 160,000 people participated in more than 80 demonstrations over the weekend. In Munich, tens of thousands formed a “sea of lights.”
Munich's “sea of lights for democracy, against racism, anti-Semitism and incitement” on Theresienwiese Photo: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa
SEDAN taz | In the darkness, Munich's Theresienwiese became a “sea of lights.” Tens of thousands – perhaps even hundreds of thousands – of people held up lights. The police estimated the number of participants at about 75,000 people and the organizers at about 300,000 people. In addition to the demonstration in Munich, another 80,000 people took to the streets over the weekend across Germany. This is demonstrated by a Taz evaluation of reports on more than 80 events.
In total, at least 159,000 people have taken to the streets since Friday. If you take the highest estimate from the organizers in Munich, it was between 300,000 and 400,000 people. That the police can significantly underestimate the number of demonstrations was demonstrated last week in Hamburg, where the police corrected their estimate from 50,000 people to 180,000 after a new assessment, a value that was even higher than the organizers' estimate.
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Once again there were many smaller demonstrations that made up the majority of what happened. On Sunday in Dresden, 5,000 people opposed a much smaller Nazi demonstration. Also on Saturday in Rostock, 5,000 people took to the streets in favor of diversity and against right-wing extremism. On Saturday, 100 people followed the call of young people in Pirmasens for the smallest demonstration we know of.
The weekend's demo events were significantly smaller than previous weekends. According to TAZ data, more than 1.1 million people were on the streets from Friday to Sunday of the weekend of January 19. A week later there were still more than 800,000. Last weekend more than 600,000 people demonstrated.
The wave of protests was sparked by revelations by the Correctiv research center about a meeting of neo-Nazis at the end of November, which included some politicians from the far-right AfD, as well as individual members of the CDU and the very conservative Values party. The Union participated in Potsdam. These were also plans to denaturalize and expel non-white people and people with foreign roots.
80 more demos planned
Between 3.2 and 4.4 million people have taken to the streets in more than 950 events since mid-January. More than 80 events against right-wing extremism are still planned for the coming weeks.
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We have been collecting the dates of the current demonstrations against right-wing extremism for more than two weeks, also via the email address demo Notices@taz.de. So far we have received more than 550 suggestions. This list forms the basis of our analysis; The processed data can be downloaded from our charts and used freely. We appreciate reports of bugs and outdated information and will be happy to correct them.