Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Sunday to denounce Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s remarks about urban migration, which critics have called racist.
Demonstrators also called on Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to distance itself from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), as Merz's conservatives held a two-day meeting to determine its strategy ahead of regional elections next year.
The protest was called by an alliance of groups in response to Merz's comments on Tuesday, in which he responded to a question about the rise of the AfD by boasting of his administration's efforts in reforming migration policy since taking office in May.
"But we still have this problem in the cityscape, of course, and that's why the federal interior minister is facilitating and carrying out large-scale deportations," Merz said.
The "cityscape" remark has been widely criticized as racist, suggesting urban populations, which are more diverse than rural areas in Germany, should be targets for deportation.
"I'm standing here as someone whose father is Kurdish," said one speaker at Sunday's rally. "Is my father a problem in the cityscape, or am I?"
Participants formed a sea of lights with lighters and mobile phone torches.
Organizers put the number of participants at around 5,000, while police estimated the number at around 800.
A poster held by one participant called for an "AfD ban now," a demand that Merz's conservatives have rejected despite pressure from the centre-left Social Democrats.
