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In December, members of the CDU in the small town of Bautzen in Saxony voted in favour of an AfD proposal to cut some benefits, such as language courses for migrants whose asylum applications had been rejected.

"This dogmatic way in Berlin of excluding the AfD, saying they are all Nazis, is wrong," said Matthias Grahl, head of the CDU in the Bautzen district council.

“If we look at these far-right actors that are on the streets and call for protests — at least in the places I have an overview of — then those are exactly the same people that called for protests in 2015 and in the following years,” said Annalena Schmidt, a former city councilor in Bautzen who has been active against far-right extremism in the area.

And Alexander Ahrens, the mayor of Bautzen, said Saxony has been slow to address its neo-Nazi problem, with previous state leaders reluctant to tackle it.

BAUTZEN, Germany — Among the crowd who gathered to protest the German government’s pandemic policies at a medieval square in the old town of Bautzen on a recent icy Monday evening were a gaggle of first-time demonstrators.