22 October 2025
‘Daughters’ protest at CDU headquarters over Merz’s ‘cityscape’ comments
Thousands of people gathered in front of the headquarters of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) on Tuesday under the motto “We are the daughters”, a reference to a comment he made when asked to explain a comment implying that migrants have ruined German cities.
Berlin police said about 2,000 people took part in the rally, while organizers claimed 7,500 attended.
Merz said approvingly last week that fewer people are applying for asylum in Germany, but added: “But of course we still have the problem of the urban landscape, which is why the interior minister is facilitating and conducting deportations on a very large scale.”
Later, when asked to clarify her comment, she said that if anyone asked her daughters, they would get “a pretty clear and unambiguous answer”, thus implicitly suggesting that a strict immigration policy is intended to protect women from unwanted attention or harassment from some immigrants.
Author and climate activist Louise Neubauer summarized the opinions of protesters at Tuesday’s rally, saying that although she welcomed the debate on women’s safety, women were not ready for it to be used as “excuses and justifications” for harsher migration measures.
He accused Merz of making comments that were “nothing more than unacceptable, discriminatory and blatantly racist.”
Ricarda Lange, former co-leader of the German Green Party, also spoke at the rally, saying that women “are not a fig leaf for right-wing narratives.”
Banners at the protest carried slogans such as “Racism is a problem in the city landscape” and “Daughters for a diverse city landscape”.
Merz, who has so far refused to withdraw his comments, has, however, received support from several conservative politicians, including Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, who said that opposition to the comments was motivated by a “left-wing campaign” that was trying to “distract attention from the reality” of the situation.