Brussels – The far right in Germany is no longer just a spectre to be conjured up but a frightening reality. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Germany’s ultra-conservative, eurosceptic and anti-immigration party, has smashed the electoral appointment in the two eastern Länder of Thuringia and Saxony. For the first time since Nazi Germany, the far right will be part of the power games in a state parliament.
In the two former Soviet East German states, one in three Germans who went to the polls voted for the AfD, according to preliminary results. If in Saxony, 30.7 per cent was not enough to overcome the moderate right wing of the CDU, in Thuringia, the victory of the far right was overwhelming. With 32.8 per cent, the AfD pulled by almost ten percentage points ahead of the CDU, the only traditional political formation that held its own in an increasingly polarized scenario. In third place in both states, with 11.8 per cent in Saxony and 15.8 per cent in Thuringia, came the red-brown Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), who, while left-wing, shares with the far right harsh tones on immigration and asylum and a willingness to rediscuss military support for Ukraine.
AfD’s pro-Russian positions, as well as Wagenknecht’s, are no secret, and they threaten in prospect to sway support for Kyiv from Europe’s leading economic and industrial power. On the one hand, the AfD’s prime ministerial candidate in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has repeatedly publicly supported the idea of Germany’s rapprochement with Putin’s Russia, while the red-brown BSW calls for a halt to military support for Ukraine and the start of negotiations with Moscow.
The other side of the coin is the rout of the parties in the federal governing coalition (Social Democrats, Liberals and Greens), which together garnered roughly only 10 per cent of the vote in the two states. The chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats, Olaf Scholz, spoke of a “bitter” and “worrying” result, adding that the Afd is “ruining Germany, weakening the economy, dividing society and ruining the country’s reputation.”
In contrast, for Björn Höcke, leader of the AfD’s most extremist fringe, this is a “historic victory”. Höcke warned political opponents that “whoever wants stability in Thuringia must integrate the AfD.” the far right does not have the numbers to govern on its own and now starts an alliances problem, the solution of which appears anything but a foregone conclusion.
No other party is likely to take responsibility for bringing the ultra-right to power for the first time since the postwar period. The national general secretary of the CDU, Carsten Linnemann, has already made it clear that his party will refuse to work with the AfD. This concept was also reiterated by the leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, who nevertheless remains the proponent of the CDU’s decisive turn to the right in the post-Angela Merkel era, especially with regard to its rhetoric on immigration.
But beyond the negotiations to form parliamentary majorities in the two states, the election result confirms the growing grip on the German people of an ultra-nationalist narrative, which rejects the stakes of the traditional democratic arc and embraces an aggressive rhetoric toward immigration. Already close to 16 per cent in last June’s European elections, the Afd—which has created a new group in the European Parliament called “Europe of Sovereign Nations” —is also flying in the polls nationwide, where it is currently given around 17 per cent. The next regional election is scheduled for Sept. 22 in Brandenburg, and according to the polls, the Afd could get another (no longer) surprising result, over 24 per cent.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
