00:00Thousands of protesters brought the German town of Gießen to a standstill this weekend,
00:24after a major political confrontation erupted over the launch of a new far-right youth organization.
00:32This all unfolded on Saturday when large crowds gathered across the town well before dawn
00:39to protest the planned founding meeting of Generation Germany,
00:44a new youth branch of the far-right alternative for Germany party, the AFD.
00:54The event was supposed to start at 10 a.m., but by that time, very little was actually happening.
01:00Only about a quarter of the 1,000-seat exhibition hall was occupied,
01:05because many of the attendees simply could not get there.
01:13Protesters had blocked roads, roundabouts, and even motorway routes into the town,
01:18turning the area around the venue into a massive bottleneck.
01:23AFD leaders, including party co-chairs Tino Krupala and Alice Weidel,
01:30as well as Jean-Pascal Holm, the man expected to lead the new youth organization,
01:35were all delayed and struggled to reach the event.
01:40Now why is this new group so controversial?
01:43Generation Germany is meant to replace the AFD's previous youth wing, the Young Alternative, or JA.
01:50The JA was officially disbanded earlier this year,
01:55after Germany's Federal Intelligence Agency labeled it an extremist organization.
02:02But the controversy didn't stop there.
02:05The proposed new leader, Holm, is himself classified by Brandenburg's domestic intelligence agency
02:11as a confirmed right-wing extremist.
02:16That designation added fuel to the protests and contributed to the massive turnout.
02:28Across the region, police described demonstrators as massively obstructing key transport routes.
02:34At one point, roughly ten activists abseiled down onto a major motorway, forcing traffic to halt entirely.
02:45Police deployed water cannons to break up at least one blockade of about 2,000 people,
02:51after repeated requests to clear the road went unanswered.
02:56Elsewhere, tensions escalated.
02:59A large group attempted to push through a police cordon near a substation outside Gießen.
03:05Officers held the line, but one was slightly injured, and some police were pelted with stones.
03:12Inside the town itself, demonstrators chained themselves to a bus that was used to block an entire roundabout,
03:23creating yet another disruption point.
03:26Authorities described the day as an active situation with many different locations,
03:32illustrating how widespread the protests had become.
03:36At Gießen's train station, crowds gathered in the thousands, chanting,
03:46all together against fascism, and stop the arsonists, as they marched toward the town center.
03:53In total, officials expected up to 50,000 participants,
04:00spread across 30 different rallies, protests, and vigils.
04:04A remarkable number for a university town, with just 90,000 residents, a third of whom are students.
04:13So, what does all of this tell us?
04:16Germany's political tensions around the far right are intensifying.
04:21And the founding of Generation Germany has become a flashpoint.
04:26What was meant to be a routine organizational launch,
04:29instead turned into one of the largest anti-far right mobilizations the town has ever seen.
04:36Slowing traffic, delaying party leaders, and signaling yet again,
04:41that debates over extremism and political identity are far from settled in modern Germany.
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