Thousands protest in Germany as far-right AfD sets sights on power

Thousands demonstrated against Germany’s far-right AfD and blocked highways to its annual conference in the eastern German city of Erfurt on Saturday when the party re-elected its two leaders who have steered the group’s rise as a major political force in the country.

Unions, civil society activists and opposition political parties organized protests in front of the conference amid heavy police presence and reinforcements from all over Germany before the AfD’s two-day conference began. The AfD means Alternative for Germany.

While police in riot gear stood guard, protesters sat in rows to block the highways and roads leading to the convention center where the conference was taking place. Police put the number of demonstrators at about 15,000 in and around the eastern city.

The AfD kicked off the conference with the re-election of the two leaders of the party Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, whose leadership led the AfD to reach the first place in the polls in the run-up to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party.

"For this remains our last chance to save our country," Weidel said. "More and more people in this country want to support us in the fight against Germany’s decline, in the fight for our fatherland and for our identity."

Underscoring the party's hard line on immigration, a song called "Send them back" played on the AfD's social media stream minutes before the convention ​opened. Inside the convention centre, vintage-style cards were on sale with slogans such as "You will be deported".

Bjoern Hoecke, seen as one of the party's most ​radical and controversial leaders, offered a mix of nostalgia and invective, even pointing to the state of Germany's motorway toilets as an example of national malaise.