Overview
- Police estimated roughly 3,300 protesters in Dortmund and about 7,000 in Düsseldorf, with unions, civic groups and a Jacques Tilly float driving broad, largely peaceful mobilizations.
- A Gelsenkirchen court allowed the Dortmund city hall event and the city’s late appeal was not processed over the weekend, while a bid in Düsseldorf’s council to impose a venue ban on Höcke failed.
- Police reported using pepper spray to stop an attempted breach of barriers near the Düsseldorf venue, and authorities said no injuries were recorded.
- Crowds inside the AfD events were small compared with the protests, with about 280 invited in Dortmund and reports of roughly 300 supporters in Düsseldorf.
- Höcke visited symbolically charged sites at the Externsteine after a planned stop at the Hermannsdenkmal shifted, and he remains a legally contentious figure with two convictions for a banned Nazi slogan and a party branch labeled extremist by Thuringia’s intelligence service.