Berlin: 160,000 protest against CDU-AfD collaboration

Berlin police said on Sunday that at least 160,000 people attended a rally in the German capital to protest the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leaning on the support of the far-right AfD in parliament earlier this week.

On Friday, the Bundestag narrowly rejected a bill to significantly tighten asylum laws which was supported by the CDU and its conservative Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the business-focused Free Democrats (FDP) and the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

But it was the cooperation between Germany's conservatives and the far right AfD that prompted Sunday's protest in Berlin.

'Shame on you CDU'
Shortly after the rally began outside the federal parliament, some protesters chanted slogans including "Shame on you CDU" before moving on towards the party's headquarters.

Others accused the CDU and its chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz of having made a "pact with the devil" by seeking the support of the AfD to pass the anti-immigration bill.

Merz has been keen to distance himself from any potential alliance between the CDU/CSU and the AfD with the German election three weeks away. Opinion polls show the CDU/CSU in first place among voters, with AfD coming in second.

"I have really said very clearly and emphatically multiple times: There will be no cooperation from us with the AfD," Merz said on Sunday.

"We are fighting for political majorities in the broad center of our democratic spectrum," Merz said during an inspection of the hall for the party congress taking place on Monday in Berlin.

When asked whether he’d accept AfD votes in order to secure a majority in the likely event that no party wins outright, Merz replied: "No."

The CDU's canvassing of the far-right AfD's support in parliament last week sparked widespread fury in Germany. On Wednesday, the CDU passed a nonbinding motion on migration with the help of the AfD, shattering a taboo in modern German politics.

Merz's shunning of 'firewall' prompts former CDU member to exit party
In doing so Merz, the frontrunner ahead of the upcoming election, broke the "firewall" set up in the aftermath of the horrors wrought by Nazi Germany.

Since the end of World War II and the Holocaust, there has been a consensus among Germany's traditional political parties that the far and extreme right must never be allowed to govern again. This so-called "firewall" has also extended to open collaboration with far-right parties in any capacity.

The stricter asylum bill was narrowly rejected by lawmakers later in the week but the repercussions didn't end there.

Michel Friedman, a former politician and vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, announced his resignation from the CDU, citing the party's collaboration with the AfD on migration policy. The decision marked what Friedman described as "a catastrophic watershed for democracy."

Friedman attended Sunday's protest in Berlin, saying that Germany must remain focused on preventing the far right's rise.

Referring to the AfD, Friedman said: "The party of hate is the party that is not based on democracy." He added that he cannot excuse the CDU's mistake in seeking the support of the AfD for the bill, despite it falling just short of being passed in parliament.

"Let's not make it too easy for ourselves and let's not make it too easy for the party of hate by pouncing on the CDU, especially in an election campaign, instead of making sure that one in five does not vote for the AfD," he said.

Over the weekend tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Aachen, Augsburg, Braunschweig, Bremen, Cologne, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Würzburg and a number of smaller cities, to protest the CDU/CSU canvassing of AfD support.