On one side, 600 delegates of Alternative für Deutschland locked in the Grugahalle in Essen since 6 in the morning for the Parteitag that serves to celebrate the historic victory of the EU vote as well as to prepare the conquest of the Parliaments of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, whose polls open in 60 days. On the other, 90,000 anti-fascists of all kinds, ages, social backgrounds, took to the streets to form the wall in defense of democracy («Brandmauer») around the summit of the far-right that has now become the second national party. In the middle – at least in theory – are the police checkpoints ready to disproportionately expand the red zone where the protest does not pass because “you can’t prevent the congress of a party with deputies of the Bundestag”, with all due respect to the Municipality of Essen and in the face of the residents and shopkeepers who had lowered the shutters to prevent the capital of the Ruhr from turning into a political showcase for the Nazis rather than a visitable destination for Euro 2024 fans.
WHILE BOUNCING here too is the other symptomatic protest of anti-fascism, which puts its finger on the wound of the criminalization of those who persist in opposing with maximum force the idea of Europe propagated by the far right. «Free Maja!» is the resounding slogan in Dresden where in the same hours the demonstration takes place against the extradition to Hungary of Maja T., a far-left militant who was transferred the day before last night with a police blitz from the prison of the Saxon capital to Orbán’s prisons, few hours before the Karlsruhe Court could say the last word. «A left-wing chaoten» cuts short the national press with a few exceptions trying to liquidate the case which is now however irreducible to the local dimension, as demonstrated by the demonstration for Maja on Friday in Hamburg and the protests of the Linke over the disturbing timing of her deportation . Faster, yesterday only the re-election of Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla at the helm of Afd. The congress has decided that they will still manage the party that is preparing to build the EU Group of Sovereignists “without haste” and then set out on the path to national government. “I hope we can replicate the European result in the next national elections” underlines the aspiring chancellor Weidel, without however explaining who she wants to form the government with.
THE ALLIANCE of Sahra Wageknecht (Bsw), the only possibility on paper, remains more than anything the strongest competitor for votes in eastern Germany (they are the only two parties growing in the former states of the GDR) and for Weidel the exit of the Linke remains «the crutch of the CDU, because by refusing dialogue with the AfD it prevents the unity of the anti-government front». The leader of the AfD knows well how high (for now) the anti-fascist wall is not only in the demos but also in political terms. Until the cordon sanitaire of the SPD, CDU-CSU, Greens, FDP, Linke and Bsw, united in the veto of any collaboration with the AfD, collapses, the fascist-populists are destined at most to local governments. Even if the institutional resistance is increasingly wavering, unlike the popular one.
«The protesters tried to exceed the security limit. The officers reacted with pepper spray” the police report while Weidel thunders against the anti-fascists from the Grugahalle stage: “What happens out there has nothing to do with democracy.” He should explain this to the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendirk Würst (CDU), who has decided to publicly thank the colorful mass of demonstrators who have «showed that there is no room for hatred and racism in our state. Today in Essen we witnessed a strong signal of how civil society is en masse on the side of democracy.” Plastically it is really like this: the procession that left yesterday from the station towards Kennedy Platz and then the red zone is undoubtedly as gigantic as it is varied. It does not stop the far from under-the-counter distribution of the incredible merchandise of the “Junge Alternative”: the Afd youth organization which has long been accused of contiguity with the openly Hitlerian right-wing galaxy.
«RE-EMIGRATION NOW» is the sticker offered on the “Ja” youth stand set up in the Grungahalle. It stands out alongside the “He did not lie” sticker with the face of Maximilian Krah, the AfD Eurocandidate who lost his seat in Brussels for having defended the SS “not all criminals”. But the maxim on the migration phenomenon that “it is not a law of nature” also sells well. In theory, material for the attention of at least the Federal Counterintelligence Office that officially keeps an eye on the AfD youth more than suspected of anti-institutional drift; but it is also a last call for the Polizei in the meantime busy outside the congress center trying to stop one hundred thousand citizens who dissent on the legality of AfD, with the Constitution in hand.
