The return of civil society – Tahrir

Since the shock secret conference between AfD executives and neo-Nazis, Germans have mobilized widely in defense of democracy and diversity. This weekend again, thousands of people demonstrated.

Despite the rain on Saturday, February 3, demonstrators came in larger numbers than the previous week; Between 150,000 to 300,000. They spread throughout the Reichstag in Berlin, the headquarters of the Federal Assembly, to make “A barrier to the extreme right”.

For many, it is a great relief to see so many people “Defending the cordon sanitaire.” “As you can see, the far right does not represent the people.” said Wolfgang Thiers, former president of the Federal Assembly from the Social Democratic Party, pointing to the crowd at the historic site. Here, Adolf Hitler, with the support of complicit conservative elites, gained full powers on March 23, 1933 at the Kroll Opera House, opposite the Reichstag, which had been burned by the Nazis a month earlier.

Civil society's reaction to the rise in power of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a former party of Eurosceptics that was ousted by Identitarians and neo-Nazis, has been historically significant. At the invitation of churches, unions, NGOs, climate activists as well as sports associations, Mel