"A one-time protest has grown into a widespread and unprecedented national movement," the leader of the Dresden-based group said, as cited by the Epoch Times Deutschland news website.
"We received death threats, our cars and homes were attacked. But we are still here. We came here to stay and we will stay here until we win. We do this for our country, our culture and the future of our children," he continued.
According to Bachmann, the square outside the Dresden’s Semperoper had a capacity of 32,000 and was filled to the brim, making Pegida’s January record of 25,000 people a history.
After Bachmann, the podium in front of a banner-waving mob was taken by Czech, Italian and Polish lawmakers and activists.
The Pegida demonstration was rivaled by an Antifa rally, with anti-Nazi protesters booing and whistling at Pegida demonstrators. The Dresden opera house itself spotted canvases stretched over the façade that read "We are not a stage for xenophobes" and "We are not a backdrop for intolerance."
The square outside Semperoper in the heart of Dresden has become an established assembly point for dozens of Pegida’s regular Monday demonstrations that spilled over into other German cities and European countries earlier this year.
