Marching against Islamists, 40,000 angry Germans take to the streets in growing backlash after Charlie Hebdo massacre

• Thousands from Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the West (Pegida) marched in Dresden
• One placard showed German Chancellor, who said the group had 'hatred in their hearts', wearing a headscarf
• Counter-protesters also took to streets as others marched in Hanover, Leipzig, Dusseldorf, Berlin and Norway

Snug in her bright woolly hat and fur-lined pink boots, the three-year-old girl was perched on her father’s shoulders last night, waving a German flag. Her older brother, aged six, stood proudly beside them.

The children were far too young to understand why they had journeyed four miles from their home, in the suburbs of Dresden, to be among this vast crowd on a chilly winter’s evening.

They had no idea why so many people were holding black placards bearing white crosses and strange French names, and slogans such as: ‘Yesterday Paris, tomorrow Berlin!’ Nor why they had to be silent for a full minute as a mark of respect for innocent people who had died.

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Demonstration: Organisers of the march in Dresden against the 'Islamisation of the West' claimed up to 40,000 people took part

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Revolt: One placard depicted German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had spoken out against the protests, wearing a headscarf

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Memorials: Another blood-stained banner bore the faces of the cartoonists and contributors murdered in the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris

Yet their father, a computer game representative who would only give his first name – Jens – was determined his children should march with him as the great populist backlash against radical Islam shifted from Paris to the eastern-most fringes of Europe.

‘I brought them to show that you don’t have to be a racist to be worried about the dangers of immigration and religious fanatics,’ he told me, as the throngs swelled around him.

‘The politicians and the Press say the organisers of this march, and everyone who attends it, are bigots, but it isn’t true. I am an ordinary family man, and I have many Muslim friends. But enough is enough.’

In this city on the banks of the Elbe, people had been staging protests against the perceived dangers of mass immigration, particularly from Muslim countries, long before last week’s terrorist atrocities in France.

Rallied by a grassroots organisation called Pegida – Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West – they have been marching here, in ever greater numbers, every Monday since last October.

German 'anti-Islamisation' march in draws record numbers

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Demonstration: The group, Pegida, has been organising marches in the city since late last year and they have grown in size

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Concern: Their most pressing complaint is that their traditional Teutonic values and culture are being swept away by immigration

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Battle: Still petrified by the merest hint of nationalist sentiment, most politicians have sought to besmirch and ridicule Pegida at every turn

Likened to both Ukip and the right-wing Tea Party in America, they have a 19-point manifesto with a raft of grievances. For example, they are opposed to Germany’s membership of the EU, want a return to the Deutschemark, and believe mainstream politicians ignore them.

But their most pressing complaint is that their traditional Teutonic values and culture are being swept away on the biggest tide of immigration since the Sixties, when Turks arrived in their tens of thousands to rebuild post-war Germany.

Still petrified by the merest hint of nationalist sentiment 70 years after the fall of the Third Reich, most politicians and media outlets have sought to besmirch and ridicule Pegida at every turn, depicting them as neo-Nazi thugs and xenophobes.

The liberal intelligentsia and even church leaders have followed suit, staging counter-demonstrations and even turning off the lights of major landmarks such as Cologne Cathedral and the Brandenburg Gate to register their opposition to the movement.

Given Germany’s history, and the fact that Dresden is the scene, each February, of a Far Right-hijacked rally commemorating the Allied blitz of the city in 1945, this stance was perhaps understandable.

The fact that one of Pegida’s leaders, advertising agency boss Lutz Bachmann, 41, was discovered to have convictions for burglary and a drug offence hardly helped their cause either.

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Counter-protest: A few thousands people gathered against Pegida in Dresden, some holding brooms in a symbol to 'cleanse' the city

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Tension: Police were on standby during the rally in Dresden, but it for the most part passed off peacefully with record attendance

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Counter-protest: Those against the movement turned out in Dresden, and have previously turned off the lights of major landmarks

But all that is rapidly becoming irrelevant now.

Whatever the motives of its founders, the backlash against radical Islam has taken off in a manner even they can’t have imagined, giving a voice to huge numbers of decent German people.

That much became clear on Monday night when I joined the marchers as they massed in a city-centre park, their numbers swollen to more than 40,000 by events in Paris, according to organisers, and many wearing black armbands as a mark of respect for the victims.

Clearly this was not some skinhead gathering.

The crowd included people of all ages and backgrounds, and the ones I met were rational folks who simply believe the future of Germany – and Europe – and indeed their very way of life is under threat.

Perhaps this is not surprising given that the rate of immigration in Germany soared by 38 per cent last year – with 70,000 arriving from Syria alone – and is by far the biggest in the EU.

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Clash: There were sporadic incidents around the protest, such as this confrontation between police and an anti-Pegida demonstrator

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In Munich, counter-protesters lifted signs declaring 'Munich is colourful!' as they faced off against the anti-immigration protesters

The people I met repeatedly stressed that they were not against immigrants or immigration, per se. Indeed, they said that migrants were welcome provided they wished to assimilate – to adopt the German language and customs, and live by its rules and morals.

By the same token, one man told me it was ‘time for ethnic Europeans to reclaim our birth-right ... time we remembered that Germany was our country first, and if people wish to live here they must adapt’.

Elsewhere in the city, a few thousand people staged a protest against Pegida. But those who spoke at the larger rally were clear about their right to speak out.

In her address, one of the organisers, middle-aged mother-of-three Katrin Oertel, said: ‘We have our right to express our sympathy with Paris. We aren’t radicals or fanatics, we are a citizen’s movement.

‘Fanatical Islam has brought terror to Europe. We are going on the streets of Dresden for the 12th time; we are growing every week. We have a right to express our opinion and that’s what we’re going to do.’

It is a message that is spreading from Dresden – where the Muslim population is actually very small compared with other major German cities – throughout the country and across the continent.

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In Leipzig the anti-Pegida demonstrators appeared in huge numbers, urging refugees to come to Germany and declaring: 'One Love'

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Police officers walk past burning rubbish bins on the sidelines of the counter demonstration against Legida, Leipzig's local version of Pegida

Last week, Pegida opened a Facebook page in Britain which already has 7,500 followers, and the organisation now claims to be winning support in 18 countries, as well as 80 German cities.

After the minute’s silence, last night’s march began with an address from the organisation’s leader Mr Bachmann.

‘The victims of Paris are the deepest legitimisation of the Pegida movement,’ he said, thanking the crowd for turning out on such a cold night.

‘We have showed them. We have made them listen to the themes we want to talk about. I can’t remember so many people taking to the streets since 1989 [when the Berlin Wall fell].’

Among those to cheer in approval was Werner George Klawun, 72, a Muslim city councillor married to an Albanian immigrant, who wore a long white robe.

‘Maybe there are extremists here, but I haven’t seen any,’ he told me. ‘These people are not against Muslims. They are against terror – and the terrorists are not [true] Muslims.’

Then there was the young policeman’s wife who said she was there because her husband had been into detention centres and asylum centres in Germany, and experienced people’s lack of gratitude, and hatred for the country they were trying to migrate to.

‘I have nothing against anyone, but they must surely be grateful to us, and accept our morals and standards,’ she told me.

On Sunday, millions of people on France gathered to make their voice heard. Now it has been the turn of the Germans.

‘Je Suis Charlie’ – a reference to the victims at the Charlie Hebdo magazine – had become ‘Ich bin Charlie’, but the defiance and indignation burnt as fiercely on the banks of the Elbe last night as by the Seine.

Europe is on the march, and there is no telling where these outpourings of passionate national sentiment might lead – or when they will reach these shores.

Additional reporting by Josie Le Blond

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Anger: People also marched in favour of Pegida in Cologne in a movement which has shaken Germany's political establishment

DEMONSTRATORS OUTNUMBERED BY COUNTER-PROTESTERS IN OTHER CITIES ACROSS GERMANY 

The demonstrators were met by counter-protesters, who tried to blockade the march as it reached Dresden's city council offices.

And in many other German cities, counter-protesters holding banners which declared 'Refugees Welcome' vastly outnumbered the Pegida-aligned activists. Berlin police said 4,000 people demonstrated against an anti-Islam rally of just 400 protesters.

In Munich, 20,000 people took to the streets to support tolerance and only 1,500 Pegida-aligned protesters showed up. The group was similarly outnumbered in Leipzig, where authorities had already banned marchers from displaying cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Tensions still boiled over on the sidelines of the counter-protest in the city, with police having to deal with bins which were set alight. The protests spread beyond Germany, too. In Norway, around 200 sympathisers with the German protesters marched on the streets of the capital Oslo.

Germany has 4 million Muslims, mostly of Turkish descent, making up around 5 per cent of the population. Chancellor Angela Merkel had slammed the group, saying its founders have 'hatred in their hearts' and declaring at a press conference today: 'Islam belongs to Germany'. 

Sitting alongside Turkish premier Ahmet Davutoglu, she added: 'Germany wants peaceful co-existence of Muslims and members of other religions.'

She said her government was doing everything it could to ensure migrants were being successfully integrated into German society regardless of their religion. 

Other political leaders in Germany had urged Pegida to call off the marches, saying it had no right to whip up hatred against Muslims in the name of solidarity with terror victims.

'If the organisers had a shred of decency they would simply cancel these demonstrations,' Justice Minister Heiko Maas told the daily newspaper Bild. 'It is simply disgusting how the people behind these protests are trying to exploit the despicable crimes in Paris.' 

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