There have been quite a few stories recently about political turmoil in German – fracturing political alliances, accusations of betrayal and various tentative alliances with the country’s right-wing AFD party, an organisation many politicians clearly don’t like but are finding increasingly impossible to ignore. Anything involving upheaval in Europe’s largest economy is probably worth keeping an eye on. Not being well versed in German politics I was, however, finding it hard to make much sense of it. Fortunately, an email to Penny Post’s Hamburg correspondent Owen Jones produced this enlightening and entertaining eye-witness report…

The weather in Hamburg last Friday afternoon was clear and sunny but bitterly cold. Shortly before 2pm, my wife and I were standing at the edge of the Alster (the lake in the centre of the city), a couple of hundred metres from the Town Hall, huddled up in layers of winter clothing and stamping our feet to try to stop our toes from freezing.

We were not alone. 

We’d been summoned to the spot by a rather wonderful organisation called Omas Gegen Rechts (Grannies against the Right). The Omas – together with Oke Göttlich, the president of the famously anti-fascist FC St Pauli – had organised a demonstration in protest at the stated intention of the conservative CDU leader Friedrich Merz to attempt to pass new anti-immigration laws in Germany, with the support of the far right AFD  (‘Alternative for Germany’) party. 

Following the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s coalition government (caused by the desertion of the FDP junior coalition partner), the hardline conservative technocrat Merz is very probably going to be our next Chancellor after the impending general election. However, his overt overtures to the extreme right are causing something of a furore. It’s possible that he’s shot himself in the foot. It’s unlikely to be a lethal shot, but his toes could soon be causng him at least as much discomfort as ours were on Friday. 

Ungodly alliances between mainstream and hard right parties (including some with brazenly neo-fascist agendas) are cropping up increasingly throughout Europe, sadly; but Germany, for obvious historical reasons, is a special case. Since the demise of the Nazis at the end of the war, the involvement of any far right element in government has been universally acknowledged to be an absolute no-no. In all probability it directly contravenes the constitution – although inevitably the definition of “unconstitutional” can be a matter of very convoluted legal wrangling.

So Merz is gambling. Alarmed by the increasing popularity of the AFD (which the polls show to be the second largest faction in many of the federal states, and the largest in one or two) ,he’s attempting to woo back disillusioned ex-CDU voters by portraying himself as just as uncompromising on immigration as they are. Hence the proposed bill. As his party ist still a minority in parliament, it’s only chance of success was through the support of the AFD. That support was duly given, but it was counter-balanced by the withdrawal of support from a number of his own party MPs. The bill failed, albeit narrowly.

If the parliamentary events of the last few days are reflected in the polls, any hard right voters Merz manages to win over could well be offset by the loss of more moderate traditional CDU voters with little taste for xenophobic rhetoric.Still, that may just be wishful thinking on my part… So let’s get back to the demo. 

 Omas Gegen Rechts first came into being in Vienna in 2017, as a reaction to the coalition of the main Austrian conservative party with the far right FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria). The movement quickly snowballed and spread to the neighbours in the northBy spring of 2018 a number of chapters had been set up in Germany. (Why am I calling them “chapters”? Possibly a subliminal connection to the Hell’s Grannies of Monty Python fame…)

The first time I bumped into them was on a march in summer of 2018. Ahead of me I saw about a dozen old ladies waving “Omas Gegen Rechts” placards. A little way behind them was a solitary old boy with his own poster, which read ‘Opas auch’ (“grand-dads too”).

The movement is clearly still spreading. I was delighted to see reports that, during the horrendous far right rioting in the UK last summer, a group emerged, protecting a mosque in Liverpool, under the name of Nans Against Nazis.

As always, there were about 45 minutes of motivational speeches, mainly by representatives of the various regional Omas Gegen Rechts groups. All well and good, but as any veteran of such events will know, there is always a danger of such addresses lapsing into repetitive second-hand sloganeering – heartfelt and well-intentioned but sometimes just a tad boring, especially when your feet are freezing and you’re longing to get moving. A notable exception was Herr Göttlich, who spoke both passionately and with an admirable avoidance of cliché. 

In addition to the speeches, a bit of chanting is also de rigeur at a demo, of course. In this sense, it’s not unlike being in a football stadium; and the repertoire is similarly limited. In recent anti-AFD marches in Hamburg the two main chants have been “Alle, zusammen, gegen den Faschismus” (“Everyone, together, against fascism”) and “Ganz Hamburg hasst die AFD” (“The whole of Hamburg hates the AFD”). 

Now on this occasion, the latter chant led to a slight altercation (though a very well-mannered one) between myself and the anti-fascist granny next to me.

One of the speakers had asked the crowd to sing “Ganz Hamburg stoppt die AFD” – “we’ll stop the AFD”, rather than “we hate the AFD”. I sort of get it: it’s a nice, non-aggressive, grandmotherly tone to take, but it didn’t sit well with me. For a while I reluctantly went along with it; but when a group of youngsters nearby started belting out the “hate”version I rapidly and enthusiastically switched allegiance.

When reprimanded – gently and smilingly – by my next-door Oma, I replied – gently and smilingly – that the whole of Hamburg could make up its own mind, but that personally, I hate neo-nazis. We agreed – gently and smilingly – to differ.

The thing is, I’ve hated them all my life. Over the years, I’ve learned to compromise over many issues, but not that one. Quite simply, no one is born racist. It’s a choice that’s made, for whatever misguided or malicious reasons.

I have my dear old dad to thank for instilling in me, at an early age, an understanding of the inherent injustice of racism. He was anything but a left wing firebrand; more of a small “c” conservative in most things, although he was a lifelong Liberal voter. Still, one of those formative childhood moments occurred for me when I was playing Cowboys and Indians with some friends and he sat me down and explained in simple terms what the white men had done to the Native Americans. It’s stayed with me.

I later found out that he’d also made himself unpopular with some neighbours and colleagues when he refused to give his support to a group who wanted to prevent Windrush generation immigrants from moving into the neighbourhood… So here I am today, white-bearded like him, standing in the cold and hating the AFD. 

Eventually the speeches were completed and we got moving. The aim was to form a human chain around the Town Hall to symbolise our unified resistance to the unholy political alliance that was afoot. It couldn’t be directly around the building, which is protected by a sizeable exclusion zone. Rather, it was several blocks away on all sides – a distance of perhaps two and a half kilometres. 

Following the crowds, the two of us set off clockwise around the perimeter circuit, thinking we’d stop when we found a space in the chain. We never did: and before long we met the crowds who’d set off anti-clockwise. There were enough people to have formed the chain half a dozen times at least. 

The police estimate of the attendance was 16,000. It’s generally safe to add at least 50% to such “official” figures. The organisers say it was between 25 and 30,000. Bear in mind this was a weekday afternoon. The numbers increased, around the country, over the weekend, culminating in a turnout of 150,000 (police figure) in Berlin on the Sunday. 

So yes, there are plenty of people who oppose this particular “alternative for Germany” and many of us who are prepared to go out on the streets to demonstrate the fact. But that doesn’t alter the fact that there are a great many who are intending to vote for them – chillingly, just a few days after the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. 

An anti-Nazi demonstration is generally a joyful and good-humoured event: it can give you a reassuring sense of solidarity and remind you that, in spite of so much evidence to the contrary, there is still some good in human nature. But is it really enough? Heaven knows, this is no time for complacency. We need all the Omas and Opas we can get…

Owen Jones

• The header image was taken from the Omas Gegen Recht website.