What’s looming in the fall? Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) experienced this during his citizens’ consultation hour in Neuruppin in mid-August. The AfD had incited protests against his appearance on social media. “Scholz and the traffic lights are destroying the prosperity that our parents and grandparents have built up over decades,” the party raged and warned: “The street protests must be intensified.” “Get lost!” and “Liars” from the AfD, but also from other organizations and the lateral thinker scene, demonstrators mobilized during the Chancellor’s appearance on the market square.
According to the AfD, that was only the beginning. Because in the fall, the party wants to bring Germans onto the streets on a larger scale with protests against rising energy prices. Party leader Tino Chrupalla announced a major rally for his party for October 8 in Berlin entitled “Nord Stream 2 instead of gas levy”. The party will flank the protests with a “Our Country First” campaign. From the fall, the AfD will take to the streets once a week on Mondays, Chrupalla said, announcing a new edition of the right-wing Monday demonstrations.
During an appearance in Berlin, the AfD co-head raised serious allegations against the federal government and accused Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) of an “economic war against Russia” and “sanctions that violate international law” against Moscow. In addition, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline must be put into operation in order to reduce the burden on citizens and companies. While Chrupalla accused the government of triggering rising prices with the gas levy, the AfD boss avoided criticism of Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine and the deliberately throttled gas supplies, which are the real reason for price increases.
Extremists could undermine legitimate protests
Chrupalla is thus continuing his Russia-friendly course, which is also controversial in the AfD. This should also cause new discussions within the party. In addition, secret services will probably take a closer look in the autumn to see in which direction the party, which has recently moved significantly to the right, is developing. The AfD has already been classified as a suspected right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
For the time being, the domestic secret service does not anticipate violent mass protests in connection with the Ukraine war, possible energy shortages and high inflation. The magnitude of possible future anti-state protests cannot be reliably predicted at the moment, according to the authority. “It is the job of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to monitor whether legitimate protests are being hijacked by enemies of democracy for their own purposes,” said Thomas Haldenwang, President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
State authorities for the protection of the constitution in East Germany assess the situation more critically. Thuringia’s chief secretary of the constitution, Stephan Kramer, warns that extremists could undermine legitimate protests and incite anger against the state. Compared to what was “realistically” threatening, the lateral thinking protests about Corona were “a children’s birthday party”.