German Far-Right Surges, Shaking Postwar Taboo on Extremist Power

The political order of postwar Germany is facing its deepest crisis in decades. For nearly eighty years, mainstream German parties maintained a strict, unwritten rule. They called it the “firewall”—a pledge never to cooperate or govern with the extreme right. That firewall is now cracking.

Voters in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony went to the polls recently, and the results sent shockwaves through Berlin. The far-right Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD, won a state election for the first time since World War II. They took more than 32% of the vote in Thuringia, comfortably beating the center-right Christian Democratic Union. In neighboring Saxony, the AfD finished a close second, just behind the CDU. The party’s regional leader in Thuringia is Björn Höcke, a former history teacher whom German intelligence agencies formally classify as a right-wing extremist.

The victory is highly symbolic. In 1930, Thuringia was the very first German state where Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party gained a foothold in government. While today’s AfD is a modern populist movement, its critics say the historical echoes are impossible to ignore.

A Fractured Political Ground

The national government in Berlin is reeling from the blow. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, led his three-party coalition to a disastrous showing in both states. His party, the Greens, and the pro-business Free Democrats barely cleared the 5% threshold required to enter the state parliaments. It was a clear vote of no confidence in Scholz’s leadership.

Scholz called the results “bitter” and urged other political groups to keep the AfD out of power. “All democratic parties are now called upon to form stable governments without right-wing extremists,” Scholz said in a public statement. But doing so will require awkward, unstable alliances that could paralyze regional governance.

The mathematics of forming a majority are now incredibly complex. Mainstream parties must either cooperate with the AfD or ally with the newly formed Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, a left-wing populist group that also surged in the polls. Neither option is palatable to the traditional political establishment.

Economic Grievance Drives the Shift

The surge is not happening in a vacuum. The former communist East Germany has long felt left behind by the wealthier West, even decades after reunification. Many voters there feel like second-class citizens in their own country. The sudden transition to green energy and the rising cost of living have hit regional manufacturing hard.

Inflation and energy prices rose sharply after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, causing anxiety across the country. In towns like Sonneberg and Gera, local businesses worry about their survival. The AfD has successfully channeled this economic anger, blaming the federal government’s climate policies and immigration laws for the pain.

“People are tired of being told how to live by politicians in Berlin,” said Thomas Köhler, a local business owner in Erfurt. He voted for the AfD, arguing that mainstream politicians have ignored the working class for too long. “We want change, and the old parties aren’t listening to us anymore,” Köhler added.

Geopolitical Anxieties in Washington

The election results are also raising eyebrows in Washington. The Biden administration has leaned heavily on Germany as a key NATO ally and the financial backbone of Europe’s support for Ukraine. Berlin has sent billions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv since the war began, second only to the United States.

The AfD wants to end those shipments immediately. The party openly opposes sanctions against Russia and advocates for closer ties with Moscow. During the campaign, AfD candidates repeatedly blamed NATO for provoking the conflict in Ukraine, a message that resonated deeply with eastern voters who grew up under Soviet influence.

US State Department officials are privately concerned that a politically unstable Germany will weaken the Western alliance. If Scholz’s coalition remains weak, it may struggle to approve future aid packages for Ukraine. Wall Street is also watching the political instability closely, worried about the potential impact on Europe’s largest economy.

The Cordon Sanitaire Under Pressure

The biggest test now lies with the CDU, the center-right party once led by Angela Merkel. The CDU is currently the leading opposition party nationally and is favored to win the federal election next year. But to govern in the eastern states, they must make tough choices.

CDU national leader Friedrich Merz has repeatedly ruled out any coalition with the AfD. But some local members are quieter about the prospect. In Saxony, local leaders are already looking at a messy “coalition of losers” just to keep the AfD out. Such a government would have to include parties with wildly different ideologies, from conservatives to democratic socialists.

Critics warn that excluding the AfD could backfire. By keeping a party that won a third of the vote out of government, mainstream politicians risk reinforcing the AfD’s narrative that the system is rigged. The far-right party has already labeled the attempts to block them as anti-democratic.

A Changing National Scene

The next federal election is scheduled for September 2025. Scholz’s coalition is running out of time to turn things around. The Chancellor’s personal approval ratings are at historic lows, and infighting over the federal budget has further damaged his government’s credibility.

The election results in Thuringia and Saxony are not just a regional anomaly. They represent a fundamental shift in how Germans view their government and their past. The postwar consensus that kept extreme nationalism out of polite society is fading fast.

For years, Germany was seen as a rock of political stability in a turbulent Western world. But as the far-right celebrates its historic victories in the East, that stability looks increasingly fragile. The firewall is still standing, but the heat is rising, and the cracks are showing.

E-News Always Fast