EUROFASCISM
German Far-Right Party Wins Its First County Leadership Post as It Rises in PollsJune 25, 2023
Associated Press
Robert Sesselmann of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, speaks in Sonneberg, Germany, June 25, 2023. Sesselmann won a closely-watched run-off vote for district administrator in Sonneberg. (Photo by FERDINAND MERZBACH/NEWS5/AFP)
BERLIN —
The far-right Alternative for Germany party saw its first head of a county administration elected Sunday in a rural eastern region, a win that comes as national polls show its support at record levels.
A runoff election in Sonneberg county pitted Alternative for Germany's candidate, Robert Sesselmann, against center-right rival Jürgen Köpper. Official figures showed Sesselmann, who had been well ahead in the first round two weeks ago, winning by 52.8% to 47.2%.
Sonneberg has a relatively small population of 56,800, but the win is a symbolic milestone for Alternative for Germany, or AfD. The 10-year-old party has been polling between 18% and 20% in national surveys lately.
It has been riding high as center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition with the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats faces strong headwind over high immigration, a plan to replace millions of home heating systems and a reputation for infighting, while inflation remains high.
Köpper's center-right opposition Union bloc leads national polls, with lackluster support ratings of just under 30%.
AfD first entered the national parliament in 2017 after campaigning strongly against migration following an influx of refugees to Europe during the preceding years. Lately it has come out against German support for Ukraine.
Despite being largely shunned by mainstream parties, it has established itself as a durable force, particularly in the formerly communist and less prosperous east. An AfD candidate made it into last week's runoff mayoral election in Schwerin, the capital of the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania but was easily defeated.
Sonneberg is located in Thuringia, one of three eastern regions that holds state elections next year.
AfD has drifted to the right over the years and faces increasing scrutiny from Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
Its regional branch in Thuringia is headed by a prominent figure on the party's hard right, Björn Höcke, who recently was charged by prosecutors over his alleged use in a 2021 speech of a slogan used by the Nazis' SA stormtroopers.
BERLIN —
The far-right Alternative for Germany party saw its first head of a county administration elected Sunday in a rural eastern region, a win that comes as national polls show its support at record levels.
A runoff election in Sonneberg county pitted Alternative for Germany's candidate, Robert Sesselmann, against center-right rival Jürgen Köpper. Official figures showed Sesselmann, who had been well ahead in the first round two weeks ago, winning by 52.8% to 47.2%.
Sonneberg has a relatively small population of 56,800, but the win is a symbolic milestone for Alternative for Germany, or AfD. The 10-year-old party has been polling between 18% and 20% in national surveys lately.
It has been riding high as center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition with the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats faces strong headwind over high immigration, a plan to replace millions of home heating systems and a reputation for infighting, while inflation remains high.
Köpper's center-right opposition Union bloc leads national polls, with lackluster support ratings of just under 30%.
AfD first entered the national parliament in 2017 after campaigning strongly against migration following an influx of refugees to Europe during the preceding years. Lately it has come out against German support for Ukraine.
Despite being largely shunned by mainstream parties, it has established itself as a durable force, particularly in the formerly communist and less prosperous east. An AfD candidate made it into last week's runoff mayoral election in Schwerin, the capital of the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania but was easily defeated.
Sonneberg is located in Thuringia, one of three eastern regions that holds state elections next year.
AfD has drifted to the right over the years and faces increasing scrutiny from Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
Its regional branch in Thuringia is headed by a prominent figure on the party's hard right, Björn Höcke, who recently was charged by prosecutors over his alleged use in a 2021 speech of a slogan used by the Nazis' SA stormtroopers.
German Jews express shock as far-right AfD party wins breakthrough vote
The party opposes economic sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine war and dispute that human activity is a cause of climate change.
By REUTERS
Updated: JUNE 26, 2023
Right wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) top candidate for the upcoming general election, Alice Weidel, speaks during a campaign in Berlin, Germany, September 24, 2021.
(photo credit: REUTERS/ANNEGRET HILSE)
A far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate won a vote on Sunday to become a district leader in Europe's biggest economy for the first time, a breakthrough for the party which has hit record highs in national polls.
The 10-year old AfD, with which Germany's mainstream parties officially refuse to cooperate due to its radical views, won a run-off vote in the Sonneberg district in the eastern state of Thuringia with its candidate garnering 52.8% of the vote.
It is the latest success for the party which is riding a wave of popular discontent with Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz's awkward coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) which is dogged by infighting over policy and the budget.
Polling at 19%-20%, behind the opposition conservatives, the AfD is tapping into voter fears about recession, migration and the green transition, say analysts. It even plans to nominate a chancellor candidate in the 2025 federal election.
Germany's Nazi past
While far-right parties have gained ground around Europe, the strength of the AfD is particularly sensitive in Germany due to the country's Nazi past.
The party opposes economic sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine war and dispute that human activity is a cause of climate change.
By REUTERS
Updated: JUNE 26, 2023
Right wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) top candidate for the upcoming general election, Alice Weidel, speaks during a campaign in Berlin, Germany, September 24, 2021.
(photo credit: REUTERS/ANNEGRET HILSE)
A far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate won a vote on Sunday to become a district leader in Europe's biggest economy for the first time, a breakthrough for the party which has hit record highs in national polls.
The 10-year old AfD, with which Germany's mainstream parties officially refuse to cooperate due to its radical views, won a run-off vote in the Sonneberg district in the eastern state of Thuringia with its candidate garnering 52.8% of the vote.
It is the latest success for the party which is riding a wave of popular discontent with Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz's awkward coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) which is dogged by infighting over policy and the budget.
Polling at 19%-20%, behind the opposition conservatives, the AfD is tapping into voter fears about recession, migration and the green transition, say analysts. It even plans to nominate a chancellor candidate in the 2025 federal election.
Germany's Nazi past
While far-right parties have gained ground around Europe, the strength of the AfD is particularly sensitive in Germany due to the country's Nazi past.
Tino Chrupalla arrives on the podium after he was elected as leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party during a party congress of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Riesa, Germany, June 18, 2022 (credit: Matthias Rietschel/Reuters)
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, expressed deep shock.
"This is a watershed that this country's democratic political forces cannot simply accept," he told RND media.
Particularly strong in the former Communist East, polls suggest the party may win three eastern state votes next year.
A clear victory for the AfD's Robert Sesselmann in the district, which has a population of only around 56,000 people, sends a signal to Berlin, say analysts, especially as all other parties in Sonneberg joined forces in a front against him.
Sesselmann was forced into a run-off against a conservative candidate after a vote two weeks ago. The conservative candidate won 47.2% on Sunday.
The party opposes economic sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine war and dispute that human activity is a cause of climate change.
The domestic intelligence agency said this month that far-right extremism posed the biggest threat to democracy in Germany and warned voters about backing the AfD.
Formed a decade ago as an anti-euro party, its popularity surged after the 2015 migrant crisis and it entered parliament in 2017, becoming the official opposition.
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, expressed deep shock.
"This is a watershed that this country's democratic political forces cannot simply accept," he told RND media.
Particularly strong in the former Communist East, polls suggest the party may win three eastern state votes next year.
A clear victory for the AfD's Robert Sesselmann in the district, which has a population of only around 56,000 people, sends a signal to Berlin, say analysts, especially as all other parties in Sonneberg joined forces in a front against him.
Sesselmann was forced into a run-off against a conservative candidate after a vote two weeks ago. The conservative candidate won 47.2% on Sunday.
The party opposes economic sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine war and dispute that human activity is a cause of climate change.
The domestic intelligence agency said this month that far-right extremism posed the biggest threat to democracy in Germany and warned voters about backing the AfD.
Formed a decade ago as an anti-euro party, its popularity surged after the 2015 migrant crisis and it entered parliament in 2017, becoming the official opposition.
East German anger boils over in far-right win
Agence France-Presse
June 26, 2023,
Robert Sesselmann, a lawyer and regional lawmaker, on Sunday captured 52.8 percent of the vote in a closely watched run-off election (FERDINAND MERZBACH)
Angry voters where Germany's far-right AfD party won its first district election over the weekend say they were out to punish the political establishment in Europe's top economy
Speaking to AFP in the ex-communist town of Sonneberg, residents said government officials had long failed to take their mounting concerns over inflation and immigration seriously.
Ingo Schreurs, 58, said he hoped the AfD's new district administrator Robert Sesselmann would "give voice to the worries and fears and outrage of a lot of citizens".
Blaming Berlin for "destructive economic policies", Schreurs said a highly controversial energy policy reform, for example, had left locals "afraid that we won't be able to heat our homes this winter".
On a sunny summer's day in Sonneberg, the neat storefronts, blossoming parks and pleasant cafe terraces offer little hint of the political earthquake that has just struck.
- 'Watershed moment' -
Holger Mueller, 49, said he "no longer saw any Germans" when he drove at night through Sonneberg, nestled on a hillside and famous for more than a century throughout Germany for its toy industry. He hopes the AfD will "stop the flow of foreigners".
Sesselmann, a lawyer and regional lawmaker, on Sunday captured 52.8 percent of the vote in a closely watched run-off election.
He beat his conservative rival Juergen Koepper, who had won the endorsement of all the mainstream parties in a bid to block an AfD victory.
The news the AfD would be running its first district council, albeit in a small constituency of just 57,000, struck like a bombshell.
Public broadcaster ARD called it a "watershed moment" while the top-selling newspaper Bild called it a "vote in anger" and the leftist daily Tageszeitung expressed "shock" at the outcome.
The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, compared the victory to a "dam break" that "democratic political forces in this country must not simply accept".
Far from just a one-off coup in a remote, thinly populated district, the AfD's triumph came after weeks of surging poll numbers at the national level.
An INSA institute survey Monday by Bild showed the extreme right party with more than 20.5 percent, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's ruling Social Democrats with 19.5 percent, its coalition partners the Greens (13.5 percent) and the pro-business FDP (6.5 percent).
Only the centre-right Christian Democrats had a better showing, at 26.5 percent.
The AfD is polling even better in the former communist East German states of Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony, which will see regional elections next year where the party is hoping to score even bigger breakthroughs.
In Sonneberg, Birgit Hillmer, 61, said she was "deeply ashamed" that her hometown had given the party a boost, blaming the community's past under communist rulers.
"I find it really terrible and embarrassing -- we're doing very well in this district," she said.
"People here grew up in a dictatorship and were marked by the dictatorship. Democracy means freedom and freedom means responsibility but people have shirked their responsibility here."
- 'Just the beginning' -
The AfD was founded in 2013 as an anti-euro outfit before morphing into an anti-Islam, anti-immigration party, harnessing a backlash against then chancellor Angela Merkel's welcoming stance toward refugees.
It stunned the political establishment when it took around 13 percent of votes in the 2017 general elections, catapulting nearly 100 lawmakers into the German parliament.
The AfD slid to around 10 percent in the 2021 federal election.
In Germany, where coalition governments are the norm, mainstream parties have always ruled out forming an alliance with the AfD.
But news magazine Der Spiegel called the party's win in Sonneberg "the result of a collective failure" of the political class, pointing to persistent squabbling in Scholz's coalition and the conservative opposition "pouring oil on the fire with populist rhetoric".
After the Sonneberg success, the AfD's co-chairman Tino Chrupalla saw the wind at the party's back.
"This is just the beginning," he tweeted.
Agence France-Presse
June 26, 2023,
Robert Sesselmann, a lawyer and regional lawmaker, on Sunday captured 52.8 percent of the vote in a closely watched run-off election (FERDINAND MERZBACH)
Angry voters where Germany's far-right AfD party won its first district election over the weekend say they were out to punish the political establishment in Europe's top economy
Speaking to AFP in the ex-communist town of Sonneberg, residents said government officials had long failed to take their mounting concerns over inflation and immigration seriously.
Ingo Schreurs, 58, said he hoped the AfD's new district administrator Robert Sesselmann would "give voice to the worries and fears and outrage of a lot of citizens".
Blaming Berlin for "destructive economic policies", Schreurs said a highly controversial energy policy reform, for example, had left locals "afraid that we won't be able to heat our homes this winter".
On a sunny summer's day in Sonneberg, the neat storefronts, blossoming parks and pleasant cafe terraces offer little hint of the political earthquake that has just struck.
- 'Watershed moment' -
Holger Mueller, 49, said he "no longer saw any Germans" when he drove at night through Sonneberg, nestled on a hillside and famous for more than a century throughout Germany for its toy industry. He hopes the AfD will "stop the flow of foreigners".
Sesselmann, a lawyer and regional lawmaker, on Sunday captured 52.8 percent of the vote in a closely watched run-off election.
He beat his conservative rival Juergen Koepper, who had won the endorsement of all the mainstream parties in a bid to block an AfD victory.
The news the AfD would be running its first district council, albeit in a small constituency of just 57,000, struck like a bombshell.
Public broadcaster ARD called it a "watershed moment" while the top-selling newspaper Bild called it a "vote in anger" and the leftist daily Tageszeitung expressed "shock" at the outcome.
The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, compared the victory to a "dam break" that "democratic political forces in this country must not simply accept".
Far from just a one-off coup in a remote, thinly populated district, the AfD's triumph came after weeks of surging poll numbers at the national level.
An INSA institute survey Monday by Bild showed the extreme right party with more than 20.5 percent, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's ruling Social Democrats with 19.5 percent, its coalition partners the Greens (13.5 percent) and the pro-business FDP (6.5 percent).
Only the centre-right Christian Democrats had a better showing, at 26.5 percent.
The AfD is polling even better in the former communist East German states of Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony, which will see regional elections next year where the party is hoping to score even bigger breakthroughs.
In Sonneberg, Birgit Hillmer, 61, said she was "deeply ashamed" that her hometown had given the party a boost, blaming the community's past under communist rulers.
"I find it really terrible and embarrassing -- we're doing very well in this district," she said.
"People here grew up in a dictatorship and were marked by the dictatorship. Democracy means freedom and freedom means responsibility but people have shirked their responsibility here."
- 'Just the beginning' -
The AfD was founded in 2013 as an anti-euro outfit before morphing into an anti-Islam, anti-immigration party, harnessing a backlash against then chancellor Angela Merkel's welcoming stance toward refugees.
It stunned the political establishment when it took around 13 percent of votes in the 2017 general elections, catapulting nearly 100 lawmakers into the German parliament.
The AfD slid to around 10 percent in the 2021 federal election.
In Germany, where coalition governments are the norm, mainstream parties have always ruled out forming an alliance with the AfD.
But news magazine Der Spiegel called the party's win in Sonneberg "the result of a collective failure" of the political class, pointing to persistent squabbling in Scholz's coalition and the conservative opposition "pouring oil on the fire with populist rhetoric".
After the Sonneberg success, the AfD's co-chairman Tino Chrupalla saw the wind at the party's back.
"This is just the beginning," he tweeted.
Germany: Far-right AfD victory prompts political earthquake
Christian Lüth
Ex-press officer Christian Lüth had already faced demotion for past contentious comments before being caught on camera talking to a right-wing YouTube video blogger. "The worse things get for Germany, the better they are for the AfD," Lüth allegedly said, before turning his focus to migrants. "We can always shoot them later, that's not an issue. Or gas them, as you wish. It doesn't matter to me."Image: Soeren Stache/dpa/picture-alliance
Alice Weidel
Alice Weidel generally plays the role of "voice of reason" for the far-right populists, but she, too, is hardly immune to verbal miscues. Welt newspaper, for instance, published a 2013 memo allegedly from Weidel in which she called German politicians "pigs" and "puppets of the victorious powers in World War II." Weidel initially claimed the mail was fake, but now admits its authenticity.
Frauke Petry
German border police should shoot at refugees entering the country illegally, the former co-chair of the AfD told a regional newspaper in 2016. Officers must "use firearms if necessary" to "prevent illegal border crossings." Communist East German leader Erich Honecker was the last German politician who condoned shooting at the border.Image: Getty Images/T. Lohnes
Björn Höcke
The head of the AfD in the state of Thuringia made headlines for referring to Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame" and calling on the country to stop atoning for its Nazi past. The comments came just as Germany enters an important election year — leading AfD members moved to expel Höcke for his remarks.Image: picture-alliance/Arifoto Ug/Candy Welz
Beatrix von Storch
Initially, the AfD campaigned against the euro and bailouts — but that quickly turned into anti-immigrant rhetoric. "People who won't accept STOP at our borders are attackers," the European lawmaker said in 2016. "And we have to defend ourselves against attackers," she said — even if this meant shooting at women and children.Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Murat
Marcus Pretzell
Pretzell, former chairman of the AfD in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and husband to Frauke Petry, wrote, "These are Merkel's dead," shortly after news broke of the deadly attack on the Berlin Christmas market in December 2016.Image: picture alliance/dpa/M. Murat
Andre Wendt
The member of parliament in Germany's eastern state of Saxony made waves in early 2016 with an inquiry into how far the state covers the cost of sterilizing unaccompanied refugee minors. Thousands of unaccompanied minors have sought asylum in Germany, according to the Federal Association for Unaccompanied Minor Refugees (BumF) — the vast majority of them young men.Image: picture alliance/ZB/H. Schmidt
Andre Poggenburg
Poggenburg, former head of the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, has also raised eyebrows with extreme remarks. In February 2017, he urged other lawmakers in the state parliament to join measures against the extreme left-wing in order to "get rid of, once and for all, this rank growth on the German racial corpus" — the latter term clearly derived from Nazi terminology.Image: picture alliance/dpa/J. Wolf
Alexander Gauland, again ...
During a campaign speech in Eichsfeld in August 2017, AfD election co-candidate Alexander Gauland said that Social Democrat parliamentarian Aydan Özoguz should be "disposed of" back to Anatolia. The German term, "entsorgen," raised obvious parallels to the imprisonment and killings of Jews and prisoners of war under the Nazis.
... and again
Gauland was roundly criticized for a speech he made to the AfD's youth wing in June 2018. Acknowledging Germany's responsibility for the crimes of the Nazi era, he went on to say Germany had a "glorious history and one that lasted a lot longer than those damned 12 years. Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history."Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Prautzsch
Following Donald Trump's playbook
Germany is currently experiencing a development that reminds observers of the United States: There, despite many lies and scandals, former President Donald Trump remains a defining political force. Like Trump in the US, the AfD in Germany portrays itself as the sole alternative to the political establishment and as the voice of the people suppressed by the government in Berlin and the mainstream media.
The domestic intelligence service, as well as the Central Council of Jews and Muslim associations Muslims, see the AfD as a threat to democracy and warn against the AfD's links to anti-constitutional organizations and its increasingly influential extremist nationalist wing.
Following its election success in Thuringia, the AfD has also received open support from the neo-Nazi camp. Prominent far-right activist Michael Brück congratulated the party on his Telegram channel, before making a dark warning to the newly elected AfD district leader to: "There can be no false leniency in the necessary cleanup of the administration."
This article was originally written in German.
DW
June 26,2023
After the AfD's weekend success in regional elections, critics warn the political floodgates have been opened. The party, parts of which have been labeled extremist by authorities, has its sights on ever larger goals.
Sunday's election result in a small district in east Germany's Thuringia region has triggered a political earthquake and a deluge of media and social media comments.
The Sonneberg election marked the first time a candidate from the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) was elected to head a government — albeit that of a small district of only 57,000 inhabitants: 50-year-old Robert Sesselmann won the election after a campaign that focused on national issues, including limiting immigration and ending military support for Ukraine.
A district administrator has no clout on such decisions, but jubilant AfD leaders are hoping Sunday's victory will herald far greater political success. According to the latest opinion polls, the AfD has realistic chances of becoming the strongest political force in three eastern German states in regional elections set for 2024.
Electorate unfazed by AfD scandals
All this is despite the various scandals that AfD politicians find themselves embroiled in: The mishandling of party donations, evidence of connections with militant right-wing extremists, and slanderous racist hate speech. And, voters in Thuringia seem undeterred by the fact that several party figureheads make positive references to fascism and the National Socialist regime under Adolf Hitler — in many cases violating the German constitution.
The AfD seems to be scoring points among voters on two political stances in particular: Opposing immigration and climate protection. For years, stirring up xenophobic and anti-Muslim sentiment has been at the center of the AfD's political campaign.
"The AfD's basic narrative has always been that there is a threat to German culture. For a long time, this came from the outside, through migrants," political analyst Johannes Hillje told the taz newspaper. "Now the narrative is that this threat is also coming from within, through the transformation of society to climate neutrality — a central project of the center-left coalition in Berlin and the Green Party."
AfD is the only true opposition
The center-left national government, a coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) has been fraught with in-fighting over its energy
policies, nuclear power, taxes, and budget. To get laws passed at times of international crisis, they have gained some support from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its regional sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), as well as the socialist Left Party.
Only the AfD, the outsiders on the far-right of Germany's political spectrum have not accepted any of the government's policies, and have therefore been able to present themselves as the only true opposition. Nor have they ever had to prove that they can actually take responsibility and run any government — partly because all their political rivals have so far ruled out any alliances with them.
The German population, meanwhile, has been increasingly unsettled by the war in Ukraine, rising energy prices, and inflation. Hillje says the federal government has not managed to allay the fears but allowed the AfD to instrumentalize them. The drawn-out squabbling over a program to phase out fossil fuel heating systems turned into what Hillje called a "stimulus program for right-wing populists."
But many also blame the conservative CDU/CSU bloc for the AfD's success. Some analysts say CDU chairman Friedrich Merz has been echoing far-right rhetoric by taking a populist line on refugees, LGBTQ rights, and climate protection. To many, this is a blatant bid to win back voters from the AfD, but they also warn that this will backfire, as voters generally prefer to vote for the original rather than the imitation.
AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks
Leading members of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have often made provocative, if not outright offensive, remarks — targeting refugees or evoking Nazi terminology.
After the AfD's weekend success in regional elections, critics warn the political floodgates have been opened. The party, parts of which have been labeled extremist by authorities, has its sights on ever larger goals.
Sunday's election result in a small district in east Germany's Thuringia region has triggered a political earthquake and a deluge of media and social media comments.
The Sonneberg election marked the first time a candidate from the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) was elected to head a government — albeit that of a small district of only 57,000 inhabitants: 50-year-old Robert Sesselmann won the election after a campaign that focused on national issues, including limiting immigration and ending military support for Ukraine.
A district administrator has no clout on such decisions, but jubilant AfD leaders are hoping Sunday's victory will herald far greater political success. According to the latest opinion polls, the AfD has realistic chances of becoming the strongest political force in three eastern German states in regional elections set for 2024.
Electorate unfazed by AfD scandals
All this is despite the various scandals that AfD politicians find themselves embroiled in: The mishandling of party donations, evidence of connections with militant right-wing extremists, and slanderous racist hate speech. And, voters in Thuringia seem undeterred by the fact that several party figureheads make positive references to fascism and the National Socialist regime under Adolf Hitler — in many cases violating the German constitution.
The AfD seems to be scoring points among voters on two political stances in particular: Opposing immigration and climate protection. For years, stirring up xenophobic and anti-Muslim sentiment has been at the center of the AfD's political campaign.
"The AfD's basic narrative has always been that there is a threat to German culture. For a long time, this came from the outside, through migrants," political analyst Johannes Hillje told the taz newspaper. "Now the narrative is that this threat is also coming from within, through the transformation of society to climate neutrality — a central project of the center-left coalition in Berlin and the Green Party."
AfD is the only true opposition
The center-left national government, a coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) has been fraught with in-fighting over its energy
policies, nuclear power, taxes, and budget. To get laws passed at times of international crisis, they have gained some support from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its regional sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), as well as the socialist Left Party.
Only the AfD, the outsiders on the far-right of Germany's political spectrum have not accepted any of the government's policies, and have therefore been able to present themselves as the only true opposition. Nor have they ever had to prove that they can actually take responsibility and run any government — partly because all their political rivals have so far ruled out any alliances with them.
The German population, meanwhile, has been increasingly unsettled by the war in Ukraine, rising energy prices, and inflation. Hillje says the federal government has not managed to allay the fears but allowed the AfD to instrumentalize them. The drawn-out squabbling over a program to phase out fossil fuel heating systems turned into what Hillje called a "stimulus program for right-wing populists."
But many also blame the conservative CDU/CSU bloc for the AfD's success. Some analysts say CDU chairman Friedrich Merz has been echoing far-right rhetoric by taking a populist line on refugees, LGBTQ rights, and climate protection. To many, this is a blatant bid to win back voters from the AfD, but they also warn that this will backfire, as voters generally prefer to vote for the original rather than the imitation.
AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks
Leading members of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have often made provocative, if not outright offensive, remarks — targeting refugees or evoking Nazi terminology.
Alexander Gauland
Co-chairman Alexander Gauland said the German national soccer team's defender Jerome Boateng might be appreciated for his performance on the pitch — but people would not want "someone like Boateng as a neighbor." He also argued Germany should close its borders and said of an image showing a drowned refugee child: "We can't be blackmailed by children's eyes."Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Murat
Co-chairman Alexander Gauland said the German national soccer team's defender Jerome Boateng might be appreciated for his performance on the pitch — but people would not want "someone like Boateng as a neighbor." He also argued Germany should close its borders and said of an image showing a drowned refugee child: "We can't be blackmailed by children's eyes."Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Murat
Christian Lüth
Ex-press officer Christian Lüth had already faced demotion for past contentious comments before being caught on camera talking to a right-wing YouTube video blogger. "The worse things get for Germany, the better they are for the AfD," Lüth allegedly said, before turning his focus to migrants. "We can always shoot them later, that's not an issue. Or gas them, as you wish. It doesn't matter to me."Image: Soeren Stache/dpa/picture-alliance
Alice Weidel
Alice Weidel generally plays the role of "voice of reason" for the far-right populists, but she, too, is hardly immune to verbal miscues. Welt newspaper, for instance, published a 2013 memo allegedly from Weidel in which she called German politicians "pigs" and "puppets of the victorious powers in World War II." Weidel initially claimed the mail was fake, but now admits its authenticity.
Frauke Petry
German border police should shoot at refugees entering the country illegally, the former co-chair of the AfD told a regional newspaper in 2016. Officers must "use firearms if necessary" to "prevent illegal border crossings." Communist East German leader Erich Honecker was the last German politician who condoned shooting at the border.Image: Getty Images/T. Lohnes
Björn Höcke
The head of the AfD in the state of Thuringia made headlines for referring to Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame" and calling on the country to stop atoning for its Nazi past. The comments came just as Germany enters an important election year — leading AfD members moved to expel Höcke for his remarks.Image: picture-alliance/Arifoto Ug/Candy Welz
Beatrix von Storch
Initially, the AfD campaigned against the euro and bailouts — but that quickly turned into anti-immigrant rhetoric. "People who won't accept STOP at our borders are attackers," the European lawmaker said in 2016. "And we have to defend ourselves against attackers," she said — even if this meant shooting at women and children.Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Murat
Marcus Pretzell
Pretzell, former chairman of the AfD in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and husband to Frauke Petry, wrote, "These are Merkel's dead," shortly after news broke of the deadly attack on the Berlin Christmas market in December 2016.Image: picture alliance/dpa/M. Murat
Andre Wendt
The member of parliament in Germany's eastern state of Saxony made waves in early 2016 with an inquiry into how far the state covers the cost of sterilizing unaccompanied refugee minors. Thousands of unaccompanied minors have sought asylum in Germany, according to the Federal Association for Unaccompanied Minor Refugees (BumF) — the vast majority of them young men.Image: picture alliance/ZB/H. Schmidt
Andre Poggenburg
Poggenburg, former head of the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, has also raised eyebrows with extreme remarks. In February 2017, he urged other lawmakers in the state parliament to join measures against the extreme left-wing in order to "get rid of, once and for all, this rank growth on the German racial corpus" — the latter term clearly derived from Nazi terminology.Image: picture alliance/dpa/J. Wolf
Alexander Gauland, again ...
During a campaign speech in Eichsfeld in August 2017, AfD election co-candidate Alexander Gauland said that Social Democrat parliamentarian Aydan Özoguz should be "disposed of" back to Anatolia. The German term, "entsorgen," raised obvious parallels to the imprisonment and killings of Jews and prisoners of war under the Nazis.
... and again
Gauland was roundly criticized for a speech he made to the AfD's youth wing in June 2018. Acknowledging Germany's responsibility for the crimes of the Nazi era, he went on to say Germany had a "glorious history and one that lasted a lot longer than those damned 12 years. Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history."Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Prautzsch
Following Donald Trump's playbook
Germany is currently experiencing a development that reminds observers of the United States: There, despite many lies and scandals, former President Donald Trump remains a defining political force. Like Trump in the US, the AfD in Germany portrays itself as the sole alternative to the political establishment and as the voice of the people suppressed by the government in Berlin and the mainstream media.
The domestic intelligence service, as well as the Central Council of Jews and Muslim associations Muslims, see the AfD as a threat to democracy and warn against the AfD's links to anti-constitutional organizations and its increasingly influential extremist nationalist wing.
Following its election success in Thuringia, the AfD has also received open support from the neo-Nazi camp. Prominent far-right activist Michael Brück congratulated the party on his Telegram channel, before making a dark warning to the newly elected AfD district leader to: "There can be no false leniency in the necessary cleanup of the administration."
This article was originally written in German.
