The racist Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) doubled its vote in the German election in February, finishing second with 20.8 per cent in the latest advance for the far right.
Frederick Merz, leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), secured 28.5 per cent, and will be the new chancellor. The SPD, the equivalent of the Labor Party, slumped to just 16.4 per cent after presiding over a government that failed to end a cost-of-living crisis. The loss of Russian gas because of the war in Ukraine has seen energy prices skyrocket.
The result follows the embrace of racist anti-immigrant policies by all the major parties. Both the SPD and the CDU promised to deport more “foreign criminals” following a racist panic fanned by the AfD in response to a number of knife and car attacks.
Merz also moved a motion in parliament to allow faster deportations, declaring that he would go ahead even if the AfD was the only other party to support it. This was the most serious move by a mainstream party in Germany to break the “firewall” against working with a far right party since the collapse of the Nazi regime.
Fascism and the far right are on the rise across Europe. The National Rally in France received the most votes in the first round of last year’s parliamentary elections, the fascist Freedom Party came first in Austria’s election last September and Italy has a fascist Prime Minister from the Brothers of Italy—the direct descendant of the remnants of Mussolini’s fascist party after 1945.
The AfD began in 2013 as a right-wing populist party with a fascist wing. Now the fascists in the party are increasingly dominant. Yet Donald Trump allies Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance promoted the AfD in the lead up to the election.
Its parliamentary leader Alice Weidel is a former Goldman Sachs analyst who has risen through party ranks over the past decade. She has increasingly adopted the demands of fascists inside the party, calling for “remigration”—the mass deportation of immigrants including those already German citizens.
The party also called for an end to all state funding for migrant support services and withdrawal from the EU migration pact. The party’s leading fascist, Bjorne Hocke, proudly claims his wing of the party as the resistance movement against the further erosion of “German identity”. The party’s MPs employ more than 100 Nazis and “identitarians” as party staffers.
Hocke was fined in 2021 for using the outlawed Nazi slogan, “Alles fur Deutschland”, meaning “Everything for Germany”. When Weidel took the stage after the election result, she riffed off the slogan proclaiming to the audience, “Alice fur Deutschland”.
The shocking election results saw the AfD come first across almost the whole of East Germany. After German reunification following the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, former East German areas experienced deindustrialisation and mass unemployment.
Mainstream parties failure
The election result has left the CDU short of a parliamentary majority, forcing it to form a “grand coalition” government with the other major party, the SPD.
Merz has already declared the need for a further increase to military spending in response to Donald Trump’s intention to withdraw US military support for Europe. This will come at the expense of money for services like health and education.
He also wants to “make Germany fit” for international competition, signaling austerity measures and a further retreat from action on the cost of living.
This will simply deepen the crisis of the mainstream parties, allowing the AfD to pose as an alternative to the old political establishment.
But there is also a growing anti-fascist movement on the streets.
When Merz and the CDU threatened to break the “firewall” against the AfD in parliament there were huge spontaneous demonstrations across the country, with 250,000 marching in Berlin, 80,000 in Hamburg, 45,000 in Stuttgart and 35,000 in Essen. This response has made it hard for the CDU to consider any coalition government with the fascists.
Another result was that the vote for the Die Linke (the Left) doubled to 8.7 per cent, after it was the only party to stand up to the racism against refugees and migrants and associate itself with the movement.
In January 12,000 anti-fascists descended on the small town of Riesa, facing down police to blockade the AfD conference.
Former MP Christine Buchholz, from Initiative Sozialismus von Unten (Socialism From Below), reported that, “More than 200 busloads of anti-fascists came to Riesa from all over the country.
“It was really a very militant event and prevented AfD delegates from reaching the conference for several hours.”
Continuing to build the movement against racism and fascism is urgent.
By Tooba Anwar
