Overview
- Hundreds of AfD delegates are meeting at the Messe Erfurt while tens of thousands of counter‑protesters remain mobilized across the city and major demonstration sites are occupied.
- Police established an unprecedented security perimeter with fences, razor wire, water cannons and thousands of officers to protect the venue and keep access routes open.
- Early on Saturday demonstrators launched organised blockades on central squares and some autobahn links, provoking confrontations that included pepper spray use, forcible removals and scattered clashes.
- A court in Weimar recently overturned parts of a land authority ban on protests along key access routes, leaving a legal dispute that city officials have appealed and complicating police rules for handling sit‑ins.
- Inside the congress Björn Höcke and allies pressed measures to loosen rules excluding extremists, a leadership fight that raises concern among critics about the party’s further radicalization and potential political consequences.