Meiningen (dpa/th) – Hundreds of people protested in Meiningen (Schmalkalden-Meiningen district) against a march that was also supported by the right-wing scene. When the demonstration marched past the Meiningen State Theater on Saturday, the European anthem was played. The spokesman for the Meiningen Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance, Ulrich Töpfer, said protests against the policies of the federal government were increasingly being infiltrated and co-opted by right-wing extremists, right-wing populists and citizens of the Reich. “This is not a harmless matter.”
According to the police, around 350 people who had come to Meiningen from various regions of southern Thuringia took part in the counteraction against the demonstration. The spokesman for the Alliance for Democracy and Cosmopolitanism at Veßra Monastery, Thomas Jakob, described some of the demonstrators as enemies of democracy. What connects them is the rejection of the political order in Germany. “You have to oppose that,” said Jakob.
Various groups from southern and western Thuringia had called for the march. About 600 participants came, of whom about 500 took part in the demonstration, which was described as a walk, said a police spokeswoman.