Angela Merkel’s Cologne Test

On Saturday, at least three groups of marchers assembled outside the main train station in Cologne, Germany. They had each come to offer their response to the attacks on women who had gathered in that spot a week earlier, to celebrate New Year’s Eve. The first march was organized by Pegida, the anti-immigrant organization that emerged in the former East Germany and has been holding regular demonstrations in cities across the country. The second was an anti-Pegida counterdemonstration, organized in part by leftist activists who accused Pegida of raising the specter of Germany’s fascist past. Demonstration and counterdemonstration were at such loggerheads that the Pegida march was delayed and then, before the marchers—some of whom were throwing bottles—had got very far, police officers wielding water cannons broke it up. Both sides claimed to be fighting for the future of Germany. Before their confrontation, though, a third demonstration had completed its route. That one was protesting violence against women, and many of the marchers had heard about it through social media or else had joined spontaneously. Of the three, it spoke most directly to the events of New Year’s Eve.