As Germany’s far right reaches milestone moment, extremists grow bolder

The AfD could emerge for the first time as the strongest party in a German state parliament after Sunday elections in Saxony and Thuringia.


Right-wing demonstrators are monitored by police officers on the day of a gay pride festival in Bautzen, Germany. (Picture Alliance/dpa/picture alliance/Getty Images)

By Anthony Faiola and Kate Brady
August 30, 2024 at 6:30 a.m. EDT

BAUTZEN, Germany — A thousand revelers waving rainbow flags and bright umbrellas marched through the streets, moving to the pulsing dance music that blasted from a trailer decorated in shimmering golden foil.

On the sidelines, 700 far-right demonstrators dressed in black hurled insults from behind a banner declaring the supremacy of “white, normal and heterosexual.” In unison, they chanted that this was a “Nazi neighborhood.”

Police, with the aid of federal officers and canine units, mostly managed to keep the groups apart at the Aug. 10 gay pride festival here in the eastern state of Saxony. But the sheer number of white nationalists — 10 times the amount at the same event last year — reflected the far right’s gathering strength and boldness in a country with a dark legacy of extremism.

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By Anthony Faiola
Anthony Faiola is Rome Bureau Chief for The Washington Post. Since joining the paper in 1994, he has served as bureau chief in Miami, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Buenos Aires and New York and additionally worked as roving correspondent at large. Twitter

By Kate Brady
Kate Brady is a researcher and reporter based in The Washington Post's Berlin bureau. She has been at The Post since early 2023 and has been reporting from Germany for the best part of a decade. Twitter