Last month, over 1.5 million people protested in Germany, bringing entire cities to a standstill, in what became the largest wave of protests in the history of the country. Cities like Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich each saw hundreds of thousands of protesters out on the streets. The protests were the result of widespread outrage at horrific anti-immigrant deportation plans by the so-called Alternative for Germany, or AfD for short, a right-wing populist party, and against the overall shift to the right by the establishment parties in the country. The protests have since continued into their fourth week, with hundreds of thousands of people still marching in the streets.

To help us understand more about what’s happening in Germany, the way forward for the protest movement, and why this matters for working and young people in the United States and globally, we are fortunate to have with us today Claus Ludwig, a member of Socialist Alternative in Germany, a sister organization of Socialist Alternative here in the US. Claus is a union activist in the public sector, and the editor of sozialismus.info, the online and printed newspaper of Socialist Alternative in Germany. Claus was active in the antifascist movement in the early 1990s, and at that time, co-founded the Youth Against Racism movement in Europe. He is the author of a book titled Firebugs, about the rise of the AfD, published in 2017. He was also a council member in the city of Cologne for Die Linke, or the left party in Germany from 2004 to 2014.

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On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back, hosted by Kshama Sawant and Bia Lacombe.

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