It did not even take a hundred years for the far right to regain strength in Germany and for the traditional parties to be corrupted by their popular appeal.
Many things may come to mind when you think of Germany: cars, beer, football… But when you add the word ‘history’ to the country’s name, there is something that jumps out at anyone who has studied it. Unfortunately, this is no longer something that only belongs to ancient history, but is very clear in today’s news pages, less than a century after the German fascists came to power.
In the historical vocabulary of the German language, the term ‘Machtergreifung’ (or ‘seizure of power’) is used to denote the ascension of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler to the German chancellorship in 1933. The Nazis themselves coined the similar term ‘Machtübernahme’ (or ‘acquisition of power’) to give an air of ‘legitimacy’ to their new regime. However, both terms seem to hide an important reality of German history. Hitler did not seize or come to power by means of a coup. He tried that ten years earlier, in 1923, through what became known as the failed ‘Brewery Coup’ (Bierkeller-Putsch), which earned him a few years in prison.
The German Nazi party (NSDAP) came to power through free elections. Germany ceased to be a monarchy with the end of the First World War in 1918, becoming a republic that became known as the ‘Weimar Republic’. Although the new regime did indeed bring democracy to the remaining territories of post-war Germany, it had several flaws that made it weak. There were constantly political forces that opposed democracy and used brute force to terrify other parties and ordinary citizens. The Nazi party was just one more among the other non-democratic parties (such as the German Communist Party (KDP) or the German National People’s Party (DNVP)). The Nazis only appeared on the ballot paper from the fourth election of the Weimar Republic, in 1928, when they won just under three per cent of the votes.
As can be seen from the data, however, the party quickly rose to one of the three largest forces and passed the parties that gathered the most votes, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the ‘Bavarian Centre/People’s Party’ (Z/BVP). The short spacing of the elections between two and then a period of months shows how unstable the Weimar Republic was. The fact is, however, that in a very short period of time, the Nazis went from a political nothing to the largest political force in the country, which allowed them to rise to power.
This is an extremely concise summary that ignores much of what happened, such as the anti-democratic propaganda that was very popular (along with the false idea that Germany had been ‘betrayed’ by the Social Democrats and Jews during the war) and the predilection of power brokers for authoritarian right-wing forces (such as the then German president, Paul von Hindenburg). However, it does help to draw interesting parallels to the present day.
Those who are familiar with German history know that after the defeat of the Nazis, the Allied forces divided what was left of Germany into four parts, which subsequently became two antagonistic countries: the German Federal Republic (or West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (or East Germany). While in the Federal Republic a new federalist democratic regime was to be implemented, in the ‘Democratic’ Republic a dictatorial communist regime with Soviet arm-twisting reigned. For 41 years, the ‘East’ (as the states that made up the former Soviet German Republic are still called today (‘Osten’)) lived under a communist regime, which made the region poorer, less religious, less populous and, as it turns out, more xenophobic and authoritarian than the Federal Republic.
| Western side | Portrait of a country divided in two | Eastern side |
|---|---|---|
| 80.5% of the population 93.1% have access to broadband internet (2019) Average age 44.1 years 13.2% of the population is foreign Per capita income is 3,526 euros The unemployment rate is 4.7% Home to 458 of Germany’s top 500 companies |  | 19.5% of the population 87.2% have access to broadband internet (2019) Average age is 46.2 years 7.9% of the population is foreign Per capita income is 2,827 euros The unemployment rate is 6.4% Home to 42 of Germany’s top 500 companies |
German reunification did not take place until 1990, when the East German regions joined the German Federal Republic to form the five ‘New States’: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. Berlin, which is also a German state, does not count as a ‘new state’ because the western side, which was already a state before reunification, only grew to encompass the eastern side. The official border disappeared 34 years ago. But the social border persists to this day.
The new German republic, which had its capital in Bonn before returning to Berlin after reunification, was set up in such a way that the regime in place would prevent the return of a new dictatorship (or so they say).
Firstly, it was embodied in the first article of the ‘Basic Law’ (Grundgesezt), which governs as the German constitution, a guiding principle for the politics of the new Republic: ‘The dignity of the human being is untouchable. Respecting and protecting it is the obligation of all state authorities.’ This article would prevent any German organ, power or representative from going against human dignity, preventing someone like Hitler from applying his inhumane policies.
Secondly, it was essential to ensure the federalism of the new German state, so that the different levels of public administration could prevent the concentration and exploitation of power by a single individual or group of individuals.
Two years after the constitution was approved, the Federal Constitutional Court (das Bundesverfassungsgericht) was founded. Its main function is to protect the German constitution and the democratic order in the country. It is responsible, among other things, for deciding on the banning of political parties–a mechanism created to prevent party organisations that are contrary to the constitution and the democratic order from continuing to exist and thus jeopardising German democracy.
This whole process took place after the great policy of ‘denazification’ carried out by the four Allied forces that had controlled German territory in the post-war period. All aspects of German society, culture, press, economy, justice and politics were to be purged of the Nazi spirit that had controlled everything in a totalitarian manner for 12 years. To this end, the subject of National Socialism was and continues to be a strong theme in schools. Words, gestures, phrases, symbols, anything that even remotely alludes to Nazi-fascism have been banned and made illegal in Germany.
Finally, a country that has learnt (or been forced?) to learn from its history. ‘Never again’ (nie wieder) is a phrase that resonates in Germany to this day, chanting the historical responsibility of new generations never to repeat the past. But… what happened?
Nazism did not emerge from a vacuum. Most of the characteristics that Hitler associated with Germany already existed in the country–and even on the European and American continents. No wonder, Hitler was heavily influenced by American laws2 to produce his racist laws. At this time, there were still human zoos in Europe and the USA, where people from other continents, with phenotypes considered to be ‘inferior’, were presented as animals to white audiences.
The Second World War, unlike the post-war propaganda, was not a war of civilisation against barbarism. It was a classic war of power against revolutionary powers that wanted to reshape the global order. The world-view of the other Western leaders, however, was no more civilised (in our more modern terms) than that of the one who started the war in Europe.
That said, it is not surprising that imposing a world-view through laws and empty phrases that do not translate into reality would win ‘hearts and minds’. The horrors of the Second World War did serve to minimise and ‘make ugly’ Nazi thinking, which helped to create an apparently more civilised and progressive world. However, in the minds of many around the world, racist and xenophobic sentiment remained latent in groups that became outcasts in Western societies. That is, until they burst out at some point.
Again, these execrable ideals are not exclusively German. If anything, Germany was a place that allowed a specific person to flourish who reverberated this thinking ad aeternum, embodying it in a well-defined movement. But this thinking exists in many other countries. What was hoped for, however, was that in the place where the greatest care was taken to ensure that nothing like this would ever happen again, something like this would not regain its strength and place in society–if not forever, at least for a longer period of time.
The most recent global wave of the far right, however, has reached practically all Western countries, bringing all those who share fascist ideals out of the wardrobe and into ever higher political office. And Germany has not been left out of this process.
Years and years of apparent care to prevent the cradle of Nazism from giving rise to this social weed again seem to have served no purpose with the emergence and strengthening of the first far-right party since the end of Nazism to become popular in Germany.
The German party of the moment is the so-called ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD), which was founded in 2013 as a reflection of the Euro Crisis in 2010. It criticised monetary policies, but did not oppose Germany’s participation in the European Union. Certain banners were already attached to the party, such as ‘direct democracy’ (used by populists to stir up the population), opposition to immigration and gay marriage. The party, however, failed to pass the minimum of 5 per cent of the vote to elect candidates in the 2013 election to the Bundestag (the German parliament).
What became known as the ‘refugee crisis’, when millions of people fleeing the scourge of war in North Africa and the Middle East arrived at the borders of the European Union, however, provided an opportunity for the party to grow. The then German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, of the centre-right, adopted an ‘open door’ policy, with the aim of making Germany an example of helping asylum seekers. It was to be an impressive (and truly civilising) turn in German history. But it backfired.
In the next elections, the party managed to elect 94 MPs, making it the third largest force in the German parliament. The 2022 elections would bring a setback for the party, bringing its strength down to around 80 MPs (or 2 per cent less).
The AfD’s strength, however, has not stopped growing internally. Particularly in the states of the former East Germany, the party made strong inroads. In 2017, the only electoral districts where the party won more than 30 per cent of the vote were in the ‘New States’, especially Saxony and Thuringia. In the latter state, in 2019, the party achieved 23 per cent of the vote, making it the second most voted for state parliament, only behind the far-left ‘The Left’ party.
At the beginning of 2020, a national crisis broke out in German politics. A politician from the Liberal party (FDP) was elected as state president with votes from the centre-right (CDU), the Liberals and the far-right (AfD). It was the first time since the Second World War that a German far-right party had managed to gain enough political strength to elect a governor.
It has to be said that, until then, there was a ‘consensus’ to form a cordon sanitaire against right-wing extremists. The co-operation of established parties or, as they came to be known, ‘democratic parties’, with the anti-democratic party was unthinkable. Co-operation between liberals and right-wing centrists, however, showed that this cordon was no longer so strong.
In 2023, the AfD won another political victory. For the first time since the end of Nazism, an executive post would be held by a far-right candidate in Germany. In a town of 8,000 inhabitants, this time in the new state of Saxony-Anhalt, an AfD candidate was elected mayor with just over 51 per cent of the vote.
Especially with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the new German government, led by the Social Democrats in coalition with the Greens and Liberals, has been struggling to govern. With three parties of different persuasions, and a lot of help from the media in painting the coalition as ‘incapable’, the people of Germany have experienced rising inflation, a loss of purchasing power and a jeopardisation of their welfare state. In this context, the AfD has found a new wave to ride. Opinion polls indicated that the party would become the second-largest political force, behind the centre-right CDU. At the beginning of 2024, the party reached its highest projection, when around 22 per cent of German voters would vote for the party if there were elections to parliament.
In the elections to the European Parliament, which are usually more about national than European issues, in June 2024, the party managed to establish itself as the second-largest political force in Germany, ahead of the traditional Social Democrats. Looking at where the party has been strongest in Germany, you can immediately see the old divide between east and west. In all the ‘New States’, the party won the most votes in the election.
Looking at the polling data and the results for the European Parliament, one might think that the collapse of the coalition parties (Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals) is just a result of their own political failure. After all, the centre-right, represented by the centre-right parties Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria, is not suffering this collapse. Well, the centre-right has bought itself political survival by bringing its rhetoric closer to that of the far-right party at national level.
Since 2021, Merkel’s CDU has had a new president. After retiring from politics, Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz succeeded, after his third attempt, in becoming president of the ‘Union’ (as the CDU is commonly called). Merz stands in stark contrast to the style of politics that consolidated Merkel in power for 18 years.
Using populism against migrants and demonising other political parties, the then president of the CDU has aligned his party’s rhetoric with that of the AfD. Among Merz’s claims are that Ukrainian refugees were only ‘holidaying’ in Germany in order to take up social benefits4, that asylum seekers, who had their applications denied but were still in Germany, were taking up German dentists’ jobs5 and that the “Greens” were his party’s “biggest political rival”6. While maintaining a very strong rhetoric against the Greens, a party of the democratic left, he even relativised cooperation with the AfD, saying that if extremist candidates were elected, that was democratic and ‘it would be necessary to find ways of doing politics’ in the cities or states7. The comment, made in an interview with the press, generated a lot of internal criticism within the party. However, Merz was re-elected to the party presidency in May this year with almost 90 per cent of the vote8. Criticism of his way of doing politics is apparently only rhetorical.
In the midst of the farmers’ movements at the beginning of 2024, when there was violence by farmers and the vice-chancellor (of the Greens) was attacked on a ferry9, a poster from the CDU in Saxony began circulating on the networks. The advert sparked criticism of the party, not least because many CDU politicians claimed they wanted to brand climate protesters, who were protesting by sticking themselves to the roads, as ‘terrorists’ and ‘put them in jail’, but were inciting the farmers in this way10.
On the other hand, accusations of what in Germany is condemned as ‘incitement of the people to hatred’ (Volksverhetzung) were made against a CDU politician in Saxony-Anhalt who, in the midst of an attack by an immigrant in a town, celebrated the shooting of the man by the police, generalised his behaviour to all Afghans, calling them ‘peasants’ and calling for their expulsion from Germany11.
In January this year, the German news organisation ‘Correctiv’ released the contents of a secret meeting in Potsdam that took place in November 2023, organised by the AfD12. At this furtive meeting, various ‘plans for Germany’ were discussed, including the so-called ‘remigration’, a word coined by right-wing extremists. This project, which, according to the participants, is not something to be rushed into, but ‘a decades-long project’, is nothing less than the mass deportation of ‘foreigners’ – not just refugees. Part of this group would be, in addition to asylum seekers, foreigners with the right to residence and ‘non-assimilated citizens’. In other words, right-wing extremists want to remove from Germany even citizens they don’t consider ‘German’.
Among these conspiracists were members of the CDU. At least one of them was also a member of the ‘Values Union’ (Werteunion), a small conservative party that, although not associated with the CDU, claimed to defend the ‘core’ of its principles and was founded by CDU members. The case caused a stir in the party, even leading to the expulsion of one of the participants13. But in recent times, there seems to be more and more negative commotion from members of the Christian Democrats. Many palliative actions have been observed, but the essential thing would be to look at what has caused these actions in the first place. Why is the party starting to have so many ‘bad examples’ in its midst–and in its presidency?
As you can see, right-wing extremism is spreading freely in the eastern part of Germany. This weekend, state elections were held in two of these states: Thuringia and Saxony. The fears that had been rumoured for some time were confirmed. The AfD managed to consolidate itself as a political force. In Saxony, it fell just over 1 per cent short of the CDU and, in Thuringia, it became the largest party in the state. This is the first time since Nazism that a far-right party has become the largest political force in a German state.
In Thuringia, the AfD is now an inescapable force in state politics. The party has reached the so-called ‘blocking minority’, i.e. the AfD can block any policy that is not in its interests, as it has secured more than a third of the seats in the state parliament14. This means that, among other things, new elections can only be called ahead of time with the party’s backing. Changes to the state constitution or the appointment of judges to the state court can also only take place if the AfD allows it.
Amid fears of control of the state government by right-wing extremists, the Federal Office for the Defence of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz), a German state body responsible for investigating threats to the country’s democratic order, has established a contingency plan in the event of a government in which the AfD is part. State sections and members of the party are investigated by the body because they are considered to be ‘confirmed right-wing extremists’15, i.e. it is confirmed that the party or several of its members have the aim of breaking the democratic state. If the party controls or is part of a state government, it could have access to information from confidential investigations and jeopardise the processes against threats to democracy. For this reason, if the party is part of a government in German states, the state section of the Defence of the Constitution will be cut off from the federal information flow to prevent data leaks16.
In fact, the chairman of the AfD’s Thuringia branch, the staunch fascist Björn Höcke, promised a ‘long road of organisation and reconstruction’ if the AfD governed the state17. Among his five-point plan is the ‘reform of the Defence of the State Constitution’ in order to ‘democratise’ it. In practice, as he himself said, this would mean removing the fight against right-wing extremism from the agenda. Höcke’s party, which collects court charges for anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi speeches, may have won in Thuringia, but he failed to get elected in his electoral district18.
Germany has another year before federal elections in 2025 (if parliament isn’t dissolved before then). In the meantime, the AfD is materialising as a common force across the German political spectrum. Becoming the largest force in one of the states and the second-largest force in another means that the party is close to finally being able to form a government at state level. At the moment, many analysts do not see this happening after the elections in Thuringia or Saxony, as all the democratic parties are (publicly) refusing to enter into coalitions with the AfD. However, the possibility of a far-right government seems closer than far away.
The cordon sanitaire of German politics, which seemed to be something feasible, has now been relativised and should be considered something more fictitious by now. With the (still) largest political force in parliament, the centre-right, riding further and further to the extreme, through increasingly dehumanising and warlike rhetoric that does not seem to be letting up, one wonders what will become of Germany in a year’s time.
The Social Democrats, led by Chancellor Scholz, seem to have been inert in the last two years of federal government and, when they are waking up to the harsh reality of political collapse, they seem to be willing to adopt a tone that brings them closer to the CDU, which in turn is closer to the AfD. Overall, then, what we’re seeing is a march towards the right, with the ominous result of normalising the far right.
It used to be said that a vote for the AfD was a ‘protest vote’. This thesis is outdated–if it was ever true19. What we’re seeing in Germany is the eruption of old-fashioned, racist and xenophobic thinking that did not disappear after the Second World War, but has remained latent and waiting for a moment to erupt. Those who agree with and vote for the far right for reasons of economic hardship or loss of social welfare are often not just ‘worried’ or ‘frightened’ citizens. On the contrary, they are citizens who have always believed in these ideals, but were unable to express them because society seemed to have advanced to the point of silencing these voices. That time, however, is in the past. ‘The dignity of the human being is untouchable’. Until when?
A lot of water will still roll in Germany, Europe and the world in the coming months. All that remains is to hope that certain trends will recede, even if these seem to be just the first waves of a great global political tsunami.
1 https://zdfheute-stories-scroll.zdf.de/ost-bilanz-einheit/index.html
2 https://time.com/4703586/nazis-america-race-law/
4 https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/merz-sozialtourismus-101.html
5 https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/merz-asylbewerber-zahnarzt-100.html
6 https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/merz-gruene-100.html
7 https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/merz-kritik-104.html
8 https://www.tagesschau.de/eilmeldung/merz-vorsitzender-wahl-100.html
17 https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/thueringen/hoecke-fuenf-punkte-plan-afd-106.html
