Erfurt/Hamburg (dpa/th) – Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) is concerned about the protests against the federal government’s energy policy, especially in eastern Germany. “A new Pegida is emerging,” he said in the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”, as the newspaper reported in advance on Wednesday. The situation is very dangerous.
As Ramelow said, the activities of groups like the Free Saxons and Free Thuringians in alliance with the AfD lead “to the formation of a new publicly visible fascist movement.” The fears of the people would be instrumentalized.
Thousands of people have been taking part in the protests for weeks. On the Day of German Unity, around 36,000 people took to the streets in Thuringia, with around 10,000 demonstrating in Gera alone.
“Everything that somehow belongs to the right-wing spectrum gathered there, reaching down to the deepest right-wing extremist milieu,” said Ramelow. Thuringia’s AfD parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke also took part in the demo in Gera.
