Hundreds of thousands of people took the streets across Germany this weekend as the nation enters a second week of protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Around 100,000 gathered outside the Bundestag in Berlin alone, said the police, with up to 200,000 counted by the organizers in Bavaria’s Munich. Significant turnout was also reported in the cities that represent traditional the AfD voting strongholds in eastern Germany, like Leipzig and Dresden.
There were various secret meetings that became public afterwards. From plans to storming the Bundestag like Jan 6 and the Capitol to meetings with far right Nazis that are on watchlists of the local secret service, the Bundesverfassungsschutz.
Latest meeting was on the topic of „How to deport political opponents and immigrants after seizing the political system“ which not only featured known Nazis but members of the CDU Conservative Party (Merkel‘s Crew).
That was the drop too much that ignited the whole protest we see now. And it is well overdue if you ask me
The Verfassungsschutz is nothing like the Secret Service, it’s more like Homeland Security or the FBI.
Mayhaps, I don’t have an equivalent table comparing all the services here to others in the world 😅
The Secret Service, AFAIK, is mostly tasked with protecting the president (and related persons), they are basically bodyguards.
Protecting the president (and other eligible high profile individuals) and dealing with currency fraud, apparently.
They’d get SO pissed if someone slipped Bill Clinton a bogus $20 bill!
Both BKA tasks in Germany, the FBI is a good comparison though aside from those bodyguard tasks and reserves the states can call upon (which then act under state law) without boots on the ground. That’d be the BPOL, roughly speaking boarder and coast guard, your Amtrak cops and the TSA. Then there’s the Parliamentary Police, and the Zoll, the armed wing of the finance ministry. And that’s actually all police forces we have (on the federal level), mostly because not everything is its own agency. The states pretty much mirror that structure (investigative vs. boots vs. financial police), with possibly the addition of the forces of the justice ministries, they’re cops in a sense (court ushers, prison guards, suchlike).