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Agence France-Presse

Tens of thousands of Germans have rallied against the far-right ahead of next month’s legislative elections, as US tech billionaire Elon Musk again endorsed the anti-immigrant AfD party.
Musk, speaking by video link, told thousands of AfD supporters gathered in the eastern city of Halle that their party was “the best hope for the future of Germany”.
AfD supporters at the rally shouted their approval as party co-leader Alice Weidel looked on smiling.
Meanwhile, protesters against the AfD turned out in cities across Germany.
The largest gatherings took place in Berlin and Cologne on Saturday with police revising their turnout figures upwards to 35,000 and 40,000, respectively. Organisers in Berlin claimed that 100,000 people attended the protests in the capital.
The protesters there used their mobile phones to form “a sea of light for democracy” in front of the Brandenburg Gate, brandishing letters forming the word “Resistance”.

AfD is polling at around 20 per cent ahead of Germany’s February 23 elections, a record for a party that has already shattered a decades-old taboo in post-war Germany against supporting the far-right.
The mainstream conservative CDU/CSU alliance leads with about 30 per cent, with CDU leader Friedrich Merz the favourite to become chancellor after the elections.
Musk, a close associate of US President Donald Trump, told the AfD rally: “I think this election coming up in Germany is incredibly important.
“I think it could decide the entire fate of Europe, maybe the fate of the world.”
Musk has rattled European politicians in recent weeks with comments on his social platform X supporting AfD and far-right politicians in other countries, including Britain.
He also drew attention this week for making a public gesture some observers interpreted as a straight-armed Nazi salute, a claim he dismissed as a smear.

Like Trump, the AfD opposes immigration, denies climate change, rails against gender politics and has declared war on a political establishment and mainstream media it claims limit free speech.
The anti-AfD rallies took place in some 60 towns following calls from a variety of organisations, attracting more people than the police had initially expected.
The protests passed off peacefully, with banners saying “Nazis out” or “AfD is not an alternative”, a reference to the far-right party’s full name “Alternative for Germany”.
The CDU’s Merz also came in for criticism. Many protesters fear he is tempted to break his party’s policy of refusing to join coalition talks with the AfD.
There was also a protest in the southern city of Aschaffenbourg, where a deadly knife attack this week by an Afghan migrant further inflamed the debate over immigration.
Several thousand also turned out in the eastern city of Halle, where the AfD rally was addressed by Musk, leading to a few incidents.


Halle police said they had opened criminal investigations for offences including assault, insults and disrupting traffic. They said they would also be taking action against 21 people who tried to force a barrier.
Musk told the AfD rally that “the German people are really an ancient nation which goes back thousands of years”.
“I even read Julius Caesar was very impressed by the German tribes,” he said, urging the supporters to “fight, fight, fight” for their country’s future.
He said the AfD wanted “more self-determination for Germany and for the countries in Europe and less from Brussels”, a reference to what he saw as heavy-handedness from European Union regulators.
Weidel told her rally that migrants in Germany had to be sent home.
“We need remigration to live safely in Germany,” she said.


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Germany

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk appear on screen during an AfD event in Halle, Germany on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

People protest against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Berlin on Saturday. Photo: AP

US tech billionaire and businessman Elon Musk says via video link that the AfD is “the best hope for the future of Germany” on Saturday. Photo: AFP

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks on-screen during an AfD campaign event in Halle, Germany, on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

EU stays mum as Donald Trump eyes Greenland and Elon Musk courts far-right

US president-elect Donald Trump takes the stage before he speaks in Greenvale, New York, on December 5, 2024. Photo: AP

Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Base, in Greenland. Donald Trump has voiced interest in acquiring the Danish territory. Photo: Reuters

Elon Musk has endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany. Photo: The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

Culture war against Bauhaus architecture by German far-right AfD draws rebukes, disbelief

A building in west Berlin’s Hansaviertel designed by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. Banned in Nazi Gemany, the modernist movement has come under fire from far-right German party the AfD for “architectural sins of crushing ugliness”. Photo: ullstein bild via Getty Images

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider of the AfD speaks in the regional assembly of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The party introduced a motion against Bauhaus, calling it an ideology with a “clear proximity to communism”. Photo: picture alliance via Getty Images

Architect and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius walks through the Hansaviertel in Berlin, for which he was one of the master architects. Photo: ullstein bild via Getty Images

Exterior of the Bauhaus Dessau school, designed by Walter Gropius and now the headquarters of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, which marks its centenary in 2025. Photo General Photographic Agency/Getty Images

Kreuzberg, Berlin, in 1981, with the headquarters of the Springer publishing group and, in the background, public housing blocks in then-communist East Berlin. An AfD leader calls such housing “a vision of horror”. Photo: picture alliance via Getty Images

Musk promotes German far-right leader Weidel in latest European intervention

Germany’s far-right candidate Alice Weidel. Photo: AFP

Elon Musk campaigning for Donald Trump in October. Photo: AP

High-level EU-China talks to resume as top diplomats prepare to meet in Munich

Kaja Kallas of Estonia became the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy in December. Photo: Reuters

“We have entered a new era of harsh geostrategic competition,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament on Wednesday. Photo: DPA

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World

Europe

US tech billionaire Elon Musk told thousands of AfD supporters via video link that their party was ‘the best hope for the future of Germany’


US tech billionaire Elon Musk told thousands of AfD supporters via video link that their party was ‘the best hope for the future of Germany’.


European Union

Protests around the world

Donald Trump

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