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German police are preparing for what they fear could become one of the country’s largest protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany party in years.
Internal security assessments warn that more than 50,000 demonstrators could descend on the party’s conference in Erfurt in eastern Germany on July 4-5.
The biggest concern, according to internal police documents seen by WELT, is that a hard core of up to 2,500 violent left-wing extremists could spark rioting similar to the 2017 G2O meeting in Hamburg.
The party conference is taking place at a politically charged moment for the AfD, which leads national polling at about 28 percent support, ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats at about 22 percent. Party conferences are the AfD’s highest decision-making gatherings, where delegates set the group’s direction, shape its program and make key personnel decisions ahead of election campaigns.
