OddsFrontAbout 150,000 people rally across Germany demanding action against the AfD
The September 12 demonstrations in roughly 20 cities turn the far right’s Saxony-Anhalt breakthrough into a nationwide debate before two more state elections.
Nationwide mobilisation
About 150,000 people joined demonstrations across roughly 20 German cities on Saturday, September 12, in a new nationwide mobilisation against the far-right Alternative for Germany. The rallies followed the AfD’s electoral breakthrough in Saxony-Anhalt but were separate from the demonstrations held immediately after that vote. Berlin, Hamburg and Munich were among the principal locations, and the organising campaign Prüf used the day to press its demand for proceedings that could prohibit the party.
Organisers estimated that approximately 25,000 people participated in Hamburg and 12,000 in Munich. Police reported several thousand people at separate gatherings in Berlin, where an AfD counter-rally also took place. Kristin Brinker, the party’s lead candidate in Berlin’s approaching regional election, attended the counter-demonstration. The parallel events brought the political contest directly into the capital’s streets eight days before voters in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are due to choose new state legislatures.
An election result reshapes the contest
The immediate backdrop is the AfD’s September 6 victory in Saxony-Anhalt. The party received nearly 44 percent of the vote, compared with about 17 percent for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union. It is projected to hold 39 of the state parliament’s 83 seats, leaving it three short of an outright majority. AfD officials are exploring whether another party will help them govern, although the established parties have so far maintained their refusal to enter a coalition with it.
That arithmetic matters beyond a single eastern state. An AfD-led administration would be the first far-right state government in postwar Germany, while failure to secure a partner would test whether the established parties can sustain their political firewall despite the scale of the result. The Guardian reports that the outcome has also intensified pressure on Merz, whose government faces economic stagnation, infrastructure demands and disputes over migration while two further state elections approach on September 20.
The legal and democratic stakes
The protesters’ demand for an AfD ban is politically potent but legally separate from electoral competition. Germany’s constitutional system sets a demanding threshold for prohibiting a political party, and a street campaign cannot itself begin or decide that process. Merz has been reluctant to pursue a ban, leaving the immediate contest focused on coalition decisions, voter mobilisation and whether other parties continue refusing cooperation with the AfD.
The wider argument concerns how democratic institutions should respond to movements their opponents regard as hostile to the constitutional order. In a 2025 institutional statement, European Council President António Costa described democracy as common ground where political differences must be resolved peacefully and argued that its defence requires commitment across ideological lines. That statement does not assess the AfD or verify Saturday’s turnout; it supplies the broader European framework. The next concrete tests are coalition negotiations in Saxony-Anhalt and the September 20 votes, which will show whether the AfD can translate momentum into governing power elsewhere.