A new anti-fascist movement in Germany—interview with Christine Buchholz

Former MP and anti-fascist Christine Buchholz

Germany appears to be amid an upswing of anti-fascism ahead of a coming general election. Giant street protests are mixing with blockades and occupations, while mainstream parties embrace ever-greater migrant hatred. What is driving the movement?

We have a very polarised and very politicised situation. Our old government—a combination of the Labour-like SPD, FDP free market liberals and the Greens—collapsed recently. A general election is set for the end of the month.

Right now, the conservative CDU party are leading the polls and there is also a massive increase in support for the fascist AfD. All the established political parties, except the left wing Die Linke party, have shifted to the right around immigration.

They all use anti-immigrant rhetoric, even the SPD and the Greens. This has given the AfD a massive boost. Over a few years it has developed from a right-wing populist party with a fascist wing, to becoming an outright fascist party.

The radicalisation of the AfD has led to a massive increase in the size of anti-fascist mobilisations.

Take Essen, in the west of Germany, for example. It is a very densely populated, very working class and very migrant part of the country. There was a protest of some 70,000 people in the city against the AfD party conference in June last year.

More than a street protest, around 7,000 people blocked the road to the conference venue.

This tactic delayed the delegates and was the first time that there had been a successful blockade against an AfD conference.

Essen was followed by big mobilisations in the winter. They came after news that leading AfD figures were meeting with open fascists to plan mass deportations of millions of migrants and their descendants. They call this   “re-migration”.

What forces are involved in the anti‑racist movement?

Aufstehen Gegen Rassismus is the sister organisation of Britain’s Stand Up To Racism. It has played an important part in anti-AfD protests during the past decade. Today it is also part of a wider campaign called Widersetzen—which means both “resist” and “sit down” in English.

The double meaning is good because we say we sit down to resist the fascists, and we don’t let them march or enter their party conferences. It is a big umbrella movement which brings together different anti‑fascist groups.

When the AfD called a conference in Riesa, in January, we knew that mobilising against it would be a challenge.

Riesa is a small city in Saxony, in the east. It has a population of less than 30,000 and nearly 40 percent voted for the AfD at the last state election. The fascists had organised conferences in the town twice before, but then we were only able to mobilise between 500 and 1,000 people in response.

This time was different, even though we had just six weeks to build the demo. Key to the change was a massive politicisation of students.

There were big anti-fascist assemblies at the universities in preparation for a blockade. This helped convince people in the trade union movement and in the different anti-fascist networks of the strategy.

On the day more than 200 busloads of anti-fascists came to Riesa from all over the country. Our protest was young, and it was also female. The blockade started at 6am and people got straight off the overnight buses to block the road.

It was really a very militant event and prevented AfD delegates from reaching the conference for several hours.

Until then, anti-fascism was either of the broad alliance‑type, which does not directly confront the fascists, or it was militant groups that are determined but isolated.

But in Riesa it was both militant and a mass movement. The fact that the town is rural, an AfD stronghold and in the east makes it even more important.

How are the right and far right trying to use racism?

After Riesa, Alice Weidel, the AfD candidate for German chancellor, adopted the rhetoric of the fascist wing of her party. She started speaking openly about “re-migration” and she has shown she has no problem with Bjorn Hocke, the leading fascist in the party.

That provoked an even bigger response from anti‑fascists. In Hamburg, the big port city in northern Germany, on 17 January, some 18,000 people protested against Weidel speaking in the town hall.

Then the CDU, led by Friedrich Merz, a hard right neoliberal and racist, prepared a parliamentary motion to further attack the right to asylum.

He wants the state to deport people faster and with fewer checks. To bolster his argument, Merz used the several stabbings that have taken place in recent weeks to heighten anti-migrant feeling.

Crucially, Merz said that he would put his motion forward, and that if it could only pass with the support of the AfD MPs, then so be it. That meant the end of the supposed “firewall” designed to stop the fascists becoming a “normal party”.

Merz’s decision was triggered by the Austrian election, where the far right is set to form a coalition government, and Donald Trump’s victory in the United States.

But the move provoked a wave of revulsion across Germany and led to a new round of spontaneous protests.Now there are demonstrations against the AfD and Merz everywhere. Last weekend there were huge marches.

I was on the Berlin protest which had around 250,000 people on it. At the same time 12,000 marched in Bonn. And a day earlier, around 80,000 people marched in Hamburg, 45,000 in Stuttgart and 35,000 in Essen.

In Berlin, crowds flocked to the Reichstag parliament and protested at the local CDU headquarters.

Trade unions, the Fridays for Future climate group, churches and political parties called demonstrations. People came with self-made signs to express their opposition to the AfD and the CDU’s possible collaboration.

The atmosphere was angry and indignant.

Are there now questions of strategy within the anti-fascist movement?

To stop the AfD the broad street protest must hit the party directly. But the movement’s leadership is made up of forces that hope to strengthen the SPD and the Greens—and weaken the CDU.

This is why Aufstehen Gegen Rassismus is working within the movement to bring together breadth and determination.

Many people engage in both the street protests and the more militant blockade movement. They don’t necessarily see a distinction between the two.

But there’s a growing understanding that yes, we need masses to stop the AfD, but it is also necessary to confront them. Protests against AfD local election rallies and street stalls are now happening all over the place.

What about the connection between anti-fascism and fighting for Palestine?

Another substantial change is how the anti-fascist movement relates to this question. Some of the big demonstrations against the AfD last year were very hostile to Palestine solidarity.

People who raised the issue were verbally attacked by pro‑Zionists on the demonstration. And, in a few cases, they were even physically assaulted by them. That made it extremely hard for us to persuade Palestine activists to join the anti-fascist movement.

But in Riesa, for example, Palestine activists were an open part of the protest. We had a stall where our anti‑fascist material sat alongside stickers and posters with Palestine solidarity. And we could easily collect signatures for a campaign against German arms shipments to Israel.

The changes is for two key reasons. First, what is happening in Gaza on the ground is so appalling that people feel the need to speak out.

Second, it’s because we and others argued that we must build a broad united front. We said, we wanted to include the trade unions but also Germany’s migrant population. And to reach them, the question of Palestine solidarity was crucial.

Palestine has been one of the biggest protest movements in Germany during the past year and has politicised a lot of younger people.

We don’t need a common stance on Palestine on the anti‑fascist demonstrations, but Palestine activists absolutely must be part of the anti-fascist movement.

I think the fact that Merz didn’t succeed in turning his parliamentary motion into law is itself a product of the movement—though the vote was very narrow. We helped split the right and the liberals. It is sign that we have power.