Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Germany on Saturday to protest against the Alternative for Germany party after it won a state election by a landslide.
Around 150,000 demonstrators gathered in roughly 20 cities, including Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, in rallies organised by Pruef, a campaign group pushing for a ban on the AfD. Separate figures cited by organisers put turnout at around 25,000 in Hamburg and 12,000 in Munich. Police reported several thousand additional protesters at separate demonstrations in Berlin.
Protesters carried signs reading "Ban the AfD now" and "Democracy needs no alternatives."
"A broad cross-section of civil society is taking to the streets to prevent the enemies of the constitution from gaining government power," said Christoph Bautz, head of Campact, another campaign group involved in the protests.
The AfD held its own counter-rally in the German capital, attended by Kristin Brinker, the party's lead candidate for Berlin's upcoming regional election.
The protests followed a striking result for the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, a state in eastern Germany, where the party took nearly 44 percent of the vote on September 6. That placed it far ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union, which received roughly 17 percent.
The AfD fell just short of an outright majority and is now in talks with other parties to form a government. If successful, it would become the first far-right party to lead a German state since the Nazi era ended in 1945.
The party is projected to win 39 of 83 seats in the state parliament, three short of a majority. All mainstream parties have so far refused to govern with the AfD under a longstanding policy known as the "firewall." The far-right party has never joined a governing coalition at either state or national level in Germany.
AfD state leader Ulrich Siegmund called the result historic. "The people have made it absolutely clear that they finally want political change and, above all, they have shown that they want it with us," he told supporters. Siegmund has since signalled openness to working with coalition partners, after previously stating he wanted to govern alone.
The AfD is known for its anti-immigration stance and its friendly posture toward Russia. Its growing electoral strength has deeply unsettled many Germans, given the country's history and its commitment to never repeating it.
The results have fuelled growing calls to ban the AfD altogether, though such a move would be legally difficult in Germany. Chancellor Merz has been reluctant to pursue that course.
