Saturday February 10. For the fifth consecutive weekend, numerous demonstrations against the far right have been announced throughout Germany. As in previous weeks, these are not limited to large metropolises, accustomed to such gatherings, but also concern dozens of small towns, unaccustomed to this type of mobilizations.
Among them: Gotha. This February 10, more than a thousand people came to say no to the far right in this pretty city of 45,000 inhabitants, located almost equidistant from Berlin and Frankfurt, in the heart of the Land of Thuringia. Never seen. “In the nearly thirty years that I have lived here, I have held quite a few demonstrations against the fascists. But there were never more than 200 at most. So many people, it’s completely unprecedented, and I must say that it’s nice to see so many new faces”welcomes Andrea Skerhut, a dapper sixty-year-old wearing a red beret and coming with a banner on which we can read: “Human rights rather than right-wingers”.
“The Nazis could rule our region”
Erika Menke is one of those “new faces”. Aged 75, this little smiling lady recounts that her last manifestations “date back to 1989-1990, at the time of reunification”. Since then, she says, politics has always “very interested”, but she didn’t “did not feel obliged to take to the streets to [se] make it heard.” This is now the case. “For the first time this year, the Nazis could rule our region. This idea is unbearable to me. That’s why I’m here today. The situation is too serious for us to be able to afford to stay at home with our arms crossed.”explains the retiree.
Everyone shares this feeling. Young or old, accustomed or not to this type of gathering, all those who came to demonstrate in Gotha this Saturday, February 10 have the September elections in mind. Along with Saxony and Brandenburg, Thuringia is one of the three Länder which will renew its regional parliament and, as in the other two, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is in the lead there, with more than 30% of voting intentions. In no other region does the AfD reach such levels. And in no other country does she defend such extreme positions. Led by Björn Höcke, the leader of the radical wing of the party, the Thuringian federation of the AfD was placed under surveillance by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the service responsible for domestic intelligence, and several of its officials are known for their links with the neo-Nazi movement.
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