AfD leader Alice Weidel canceled an appearance at her party’s rally shortly before the state elections in Bavaria due to a threat. “The weekend before last there was a security-related incident. Ms. Weidel and her family were taken from their private apartment to a safe place by security authorities because evidence had accumulated that pointed to an attack on her family,” said a spokesman for the politician German press agency. As a precautionary measure, she refrained from making public appearances. A spokeswoman for the Federal Criminal Police Office said that they do not comment on individual facts.
The AfD had invited Weidel as a keynote speaker to the Day of German Unity in Mödlareuth – a place that is in both Bavaria and Thuringia and through which the inner-German border used to run. The date was supposed to be the highlight of the AfD election campaign in Bavaria.
Weidel addressed her followers with a video message. “I would like nothing more than to be with you today, but unfortunately I can’t,” she said and called for the Bavarian state government under Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) to be given a lesson in the election next Sunday. The CDU and CSU also invited people to a rally on German Unity Day.
Numerous counter-demonstrators from the AfD rally also came to stand for democracy and cosmopolitanism and against right-wing extremism. The “Mödlareuth limitlessly colorful” campaign, among others, called for this. According to the Upper Franconian police headquarters and the Thuringian police, everything was quiet until the afternoon. According to the information, a total of 5,000 to 6,000 people came to the place.
Until reunification, the border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran through Mödlareuth. Today the story of division and unity is told in the German-German Museum; parts of the wall and the barrier are still preserved.