The billionaire has again expressed his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, speaking via video call at a campaign rally. His move comes amid , who was seen as a Nazi by some, on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“It’s okay to be proud to be German. Fight for a bright future for her,” said the richest man on the planet. He spoke to around 4,500 AfD supporters in Halle, eastern Germany.
To applause from the audience, Musk reiterated his support for the far-right party. According to him, this party embodies “Germany’s best hope”. In his incoherent intervention, he saluted “the German nation” which has a history of “thousands of years”.
The Roman emperor Julius Caesar was “impressed” by the Germanic sexes’ will to fight, he said. The current government is “aggressively suppressing freedom of expression,” he continued. The AfD must therefore “fight, fight, fight” for “more self-determination for Germany and the countries of Europe and less Brussels,” he explained.
Apparently referring to Germany’s Nazi past, he also said that “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, much less their grandparents.”
“We focus too much on the guilt of the past and we need to get past that,” he added.
In the last few weeks, he and other countries, with his comments on the X platform. He called Chancellor Olaf Solz “crazy” and an “incompetent idiot” and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier a “tyrant”.
The polls put the AfD in second place, ahead of , with 20%, behind the Christian Democratic parties CDU/CSU which gather around 30% in voting intention.
Demonstrations against the far right across Germany
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday in more than 60 German cities against the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the far-right populist party, and asking the democratic parties not to cooperate with the AfD after the election.
According to police, in Berlin at least 35,000 people gathered at the Brandenburg Gate holding candles and lanterns. In this way, they sent their message “against the country’s turn to the right”, with slogans against the cooperation of the other parties with the AfD.
“Otherwise, there will be an uprising of the dignified,” shouted the demonstrators. Christoph Bautz, head of Campact, which co-organized the demonstration with Fridays for the Future and Parents Against the Far Right, stressed that “the democratic parties must help to withstand the ‘firewall’ and not to cooperate with the AfD”.
Addressing specifically Christian Democratic Party (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz, he warned that “if he seeks a majority with the AfD on immigration issues, there will be a revolt of the decent in this country.”
Among others, the President of the Synod of Evangelical Churches in Germany, Anna-Nicole Heinrich, participated in the demonstration, who emphasized that “God has given all people the same dignity and for this reason we will not remain silent when people are excluded, attacked or threats and we stand up to anyone who attacks democracy.” He also noted that churches remain a place of refuge and called on politicians not to distort the facts during the election campaign.
Other demonstrations
More than 40,000 people also demonstrated in Cologne, with the participation of Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), while a gathering of 3,000 people took place in Aschaffenburg, where last Thursday an Afghan man stabbed to death a 2-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man who tried to stop him. “Asafenburg is colorful,” the banners read.
In the Saxony-Anhalt city of Halle, where the AfD’s central election rally was held with speakers Alice Weidel and Tino Hrupala, around 10,000 protesters voiced their opposition. The police guarded the gatherings with strong forces and assistance from neighboring states.
Similar demonstrations were held in Münster, Karlsruhe and Regenstauf and other cities, while a rally is planned for tomorrow in Hamburg and elsewhere. A year ago there were again mass demonstrations against the far-right, on the occasion of the revelation of the secret meeting of AfD officials with neo-Nazis in Potsdam, Brandenburg, about the plan to forcibly deport about 2 million immigrants.
