At 5am on Saturday, I found myself jogging across a field with a few hundred strangers to block a highway near Erfurt, Germany. We were one of several groups setting up roadblocks to prevent delegates from reaching the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party conference. Facing a row of police in riot gear, we chanted: 'Siamo tutti antifascisti (We are all antifascists)!'
Why I Joined the Protest
As a Canadian journalist who has called Germany home for nearly 30 years and a father of two daughters, I chose to join the demonstrators rather than cover the action as a reporter. The AfD terrifies me. The party backs 'remigration,' a policy critics warn could extend beyond deporting undocumented migrants to removing German citizens with migrant backgrounds. The Bavarian AfD parliamentary group has called for a German deportation police force modelled on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
AfD's Growing Power
Polls now show the AfD as Germany's most popular party, with support approaching 30%. This autumn, crucial elections in two eastern German states—Saxony-Anhalt and another—could see the AfD win. In Saxony-Anhalt, polling suggests it is close to securing an absolute majority, which would make it the first far-right party to take state office since the Nazi dictatorship.
Widersetzen: A Movement of Civil Disobedience
The blockades were organised by Widersetzen, a coalition of trade unionists, climate activists, anti-racist groups, queer organisations and local networks committed to civil disobedience. The name means both 'sit down' and 'resist.' Conservative media portray Widersetzen as dangerous far-left radicals, but my blockade felt more like a street party. A twentysomething next to me wore a pink T-shirt with a unicorn and the legend 'Alpha Male.' A medical student brought her urology textbook to study in downtime. The only violence I saw came from police, who used batons and pepper spray on a handful of protesters who ran through a gap in the cordon.
Hope Amidst Fear
Instead of aggression, I felt hope—something missing from German politics for too long. Until now, the AfD's rise has felt inevitable. Mainstream parties have responded by chasing the same voters. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has moved right on immigration and social issues, using dog-whistle language while cutting social funding and boosting military spending. Yet the AfD has only grown stronger.
Grassroots Ground Game
What struck me most was Widersetzen's ground game. For months before the conference, activists went door to door, speaking with residents and building alliances with community groups—exactly the shoe-leather politics that mainstream parties have neglected in the east. These efforts paid off. After my blockade broke up, I walked through Erfurt with hundreds of protesters. People waved from windows and cheered us on. An older woman leaning on her garden fence, tears in her eyes, gave us the thumbs up. In the heartland of the AfD, we felt like the majority.
A Fightback Begins
Widersetzen didn't stop the AfD conference—delegates slipped into the convention centre before dawn. But the movement achieved something mainstream parties have failed to do: convince thousands of ordinary people that democracy is something you have to put your body on the line for. It won't be enough on its own to stop the AfD. But after years of the far right's seemingly inevitable rise, this felt like the beginning of the fightback.
