Video of crowd in Hamburg is from anti-AfD protest

By: John Faerseth
February 9 2024

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Source: Screenshot modified by Logically Facts

A video shared on Facebook on January 5, 2024, shows a large gathering of people with the caption, “German farmers have had enough of govt climate terrorism! Globalist psychopaths no longer can control the chaos…”

Several TikTok and Instagram users have also shared the video, claiming that it shows Germans protesting in support of Palestinians in Gaza. 

In fact, the video is from Hamburg on January 19 and shows protests against the far-right German party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). 

In fact

The video is aerial footage of a crowd filling streets and squares. Several features make it possible to identify the area as the Jungfernstieg boulevard in Hamburg, where a large rally took place on January 19. 

While we have been unable to determine the original source, the same video was shared by a YouTube account on January 20, with a caption stating that it was from protests against AfD on January 19. Footage of the January 19 protests published by Euronews, German media, and local authorities also show a similarly sized crowd in the same area, although from a different angle. Similar amounts of snow on rooftops make this footage likely to be from the same day as the video published on Facebook.

Euronews footage from January 19 compared with footage in the viral video. (Source: Screenshot/Composite by Logically Facts)

The rally in Hamburg drew between 50,000 and 80,000 people and had to be stopped early for safety reasons since far more people showed up than expected. Similar protests took place in many other German cities. They were sparked by a January 8 report from the investigative outlet Correctiv. It revealed that high-ranking members of the AfD had taken part in a secret meeting with far-right activists in November 2024 in a hotel on the outskirts of Potsdam.

Among the speakers was Martin Sellner, founder of the Austrian Identitarian movement. The topics discussed included the forcible extradition of “foreigners,” including asylum seekers, non-Germans with residency rights, and “non-assimilated” German citizens. According to Correctiv, known neo-Nazis were also present, as well as sympathetic businesspeople. 

The meeting has also led to discussion about whether to ban or take away state funding for the AfD, as the German constitution allows prohibition of parties that “seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order” due to the country’s Nazi past. In 2017, lawmakers amended the constitution to make it possible to revoke state funding for such parties. 

Angry farmers have protested in several European countries since December. Reasons vary from country to country; typical grievances include loss of income, climate and environmental regulations, the EU’s decision to allow tariff-free import of Ukrainian agricultural products until 2025, and negotiations over a trade agreement with the South American Mercosur bloc, which many farmers believe may cause unfair competition.

The far-right has tried to instrumentalize the protests, including the German AfD. While farmers have protested in Hamburg by using tractors to block roads, these demonstrations have been far from the size of the January 19 protests. 

The caption in the video is a quote from Anastasia Maria Loupis, who shared the same clip on X on February 3. According to the Twitter account and website Vatnik Soup, run by Finnish researcher Pekka Kallioniemi, Loupis is a Danish medical doctor known for spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19, the Russo-Ukrainian War, and other trending topics.

Hamburg has also seen protests against Israel’s attacks in Gaza. However, as stated above, the footage appears to be from January 19 and thus unrelated to the Gaza conflict. However, according to Al Jazeera, some protesters who attended the anti-AfD rally did carry Palestinian flags to show their solidarity with the people of Gaza. 

The verdict

The video resembles footage from a January 19 rally in Hamburg against the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). It is unrelated to the current farmers’ protests or pro-Palestine protests. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.