A significantly higher number of people than expected turned out on Saturday in Neu-Isenburg, a southern suburb of Frankfurt, to demonstrate against the far right in a protest that turned violent, the police said.
Some 9,000 demonstrators showed up to protest an election rally for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of the February 23 Bundestag or parliamentary elections, authorities said.
Several people broke through a barrier and attacked police officers. One police officer and one demonstrator were injured, a police spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said participants had tried to set two police vehicles on fire in the afternoon, damaging one of them in the process.
A water cannon was sent to the scene to extinguish any further fires, the spokeswoman said. She added that smoke pots had been ignited and that one person had been temporarily detained. In addition, around 30-40 people took part in a sit-in blockade at an access road to the hall where the election rally was taking place.
In view of the large number of participants, the police cleared additional areas for the gatherings. The protesters carried placards and banners bearing messages such as “Brown bottles belong in the bottle recycling, not in the Bundestag” – a reference to the Nazi stormtroopers whose uniforms included a brown shirt. Members of the Nazi paramilitary group were often known as the brown shirts.
Other signs read: “Against the shift to the right! No room for fascism!” Several demonstrations were planned in the city area over the course of the day.
People take part in a protest of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) and its member unions against the migration policy. German lawmakers rejected highly controversial migration legislation brought by the centre-right CDU/CSU opposition bloc on Friday in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. Salome Roessler/dpa
