{"id":525019,"date":"2026-07-04T14:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T14:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/525019\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T14:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T14:45:13","slug":"german-riot-police-clash-with-protesters-hoping-to-block-far-right-afd-conference-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/525019\/","title":{"rendered":"German riot police clash with protesters hoping to block far-right AfD conference | Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

Riot police have clashed with opponents of the far-right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland <\/a>(AfD) party on the streets of Erfurt in Germany, where thousands met to block roads and prevent AfD delegates from attending the party\u2019s biennial national conference to elect its leadership.<\/p>\n

Police reported 20,000 protesters were demonstrating in the eastern city, where Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla are expected to be re-elected as the party\u2019s co-leaders in the run-up to crucial regional elections in which AfD could win power at state-level for the first time.<\/p>\n

AfD held its conference on the centennial of a Nazi party conference in nearby Weimar, where Adolf Hitler introduced the Hitler salute. Photograph: Ebrahim Noroozi\/AP<\/p>\n

The protesters, led by the \u201cResistance\u201d alliance, staged sit-in blockades in the city centre in an attempt to prevent the AfD\u2019s approximately 600 delegates from reaching the conference grounds, with some abseiling from a motorway bridge and others gluing themselves to tram tracks to cause disruption.<\/p>\n

Thousands of police were deployed to the city, and some were filmed using batons on protesters<\/a> who ran towards them, while others were captured on camera struggling to hold back crowds of demonstrators<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, a police spokesperson told Die Zeit<\/a> that the demonstration had been \u201cmostly peaceful\u201d, adding that just under 100 offences had been recorded so far, many of them property damage by graffiti.<\/p>\n

The protesters, led by the \u2018Resistance\u2019 alliance, staged sit-in blockades. Photograph: Ebrahim Noroozi\/AP<\/p>\n

Despite the efforts of the protesters to cause disruption, a spokesperson for the AfD told reporters 540 delegates had managed to reach the conference centre before 5am and its congress had begun on time.<\/p>\n

AfD\u2019s decision to hold its conference on the centennial of a Nazi party conference in nearby Weimar, where Adolf Hitler unveiled the Hitler Youth movement and introduced the Hitler salute, has caused outrage in Germany<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Historians and politicians say the timing of the conference is a deliberate provocation<\/a>, which AfD has denied, describing its critics as \u201cclearly only interested in the compulsive weaponisation of history\u201d.<\/p>\n

Opponents of AfD accuse the party of promoting racist and anti-Muslim policies<\/a>, and are angered by AfD politicians downplaying Nazi crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AfD\u2019s co-leader Tino Chrupalla said holding party conferences was a \u2018guaranteed right\u2019. Photograph: Jens Schlueter\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Protesters in Erfurt included the federal environment minister, Carsten Schneider, and Thuringia\u2019s interior minister, Georg Maier, who gathered at a second demonstration march organised by the Standing Together alliance, where the \u201cGrandmas Against the Right\u201d waved homemade signs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to send a signal against the shift to the right,\u201d one of the demonstrators, Lene Krug, 19, from Gera, east of Erfurt, told reporters for Agence France-Presse. \u201cThe AfD is an anti-democratic party that spreads hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Another protester, who was among the group who stuck themselves to tram tracks in a city square, told AfP: \u201c1933 to 1945 must never happen again,\u201d referring to the period when the Nazis were in power.<\/p>\n

Ella, 44, who gave only her first name, added: \u201cThe democratic parties need to understand that they must impose a ban [on the AfD].\u201d<\/p>\n

Protesters in Erfurt included the federal environment minister, Carsten Schneider, and Thuringia\u2019s interior minister, Georg Maier. Photograph: Christian Mang\/Reuters<\/p>\n

In his opening speech, Chrupalla accused demonstrators of protesting \u201cagainst democratic decision-making\u201d. He said: \u201cThey believe they have a monopoly on democracy. To these demonstrators I say: this democracy is just as much our democracy as it is yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holding party conferences is a \u201cguaranteed right\u201d, he added, according to Die Zeit. \u201cThese troublemakers are the last line of defence for our political competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then called on supporters to help his party win an absolute majority in the Saxony-Anhalt state elections. \u201cThat would send the right signal to the democracy-haters out there who wanted to prevent our party conference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Describing his dual leadership with Weidel as \u201ca successful duo the likes of which German politics has rarely seen\u201d, he added: \u201cWe stand for unity, not division.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Riot police have clashed with opponents of the far-right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland (AfD) party on the streets of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-525019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}