Story highlights Weekly protests in Dresden drew a few hundred when they began a year ago

Now the anti-migrant gatherings draw thousands

Dresden, Germany (CNN) Every Monday evening in Dresden, thousands gather in front of the city's Opera House. They carry German flags and sing nationalist songs with one goal: to stop refugees and migrants from coming to Germany.

Thomas is one of them and this Monday he held a placard with a photoshopped picture of Chancellor Angela Merkel dressed in a Muslim headscarf.

He didn't want to give his last name but he told CNN he fears Germany's traditions are being eroded by Muslim migrants.

"Every Monday night we come to gather peacefully. We are not Nazis. We don't want to be labeled as Nazis and we don't want to painted into the right-wing corner. We just don't want to become strangers in our own country."

The Dresden protests started almost exactly one year ago when Lutz Bachmann, a former professional footballer with a criminal record for burglary and assault, posted a Facebook rant against Turkish immigrants in Germany. That became the basis of PEGIDA or "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West." What started as a small protest of a few hundred has grown into a weekly protest that now consistently draws thousands every Monday.

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