In the decades since the end of the Second World War, the main parties in German politics have worked to shut out the far-right, so as to stifle the rise of any successor movement to the Nazi party. This firewall against the far-right has meant that parties like the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democrats (SPD), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) do not form coalitions nor co-operate with the far-right. The idea is to avoid legitimising any party that promotes anti-democratic politics or the notion that the Nazi regime wasn’t all that bad.

For decades, that firewall seemed to work rather effectively; while there are questions to be asked about the reintegration of former-Nazis into West German society after the war, for much of the post-war era the far-right lacked representation in the Bundestag and was never included in any coalition governments.

The strength of that firewall has been tested by the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which started out as a Eurosceptic party in 2013 but has since embraced a far-right platform, including rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change and advocating mass deportations for immigrants. Led by Alice Weidel, a former economist for Goldman Sachs, the AfD’s populist message helped it to gain 20.8% of the vote in February’s election, second only to Friedrich Merz’s alliance of the CDU and Christian Social Union, on 28.6%, and well ahead of the incumbent SPD on 16.4%.

The story will be all too familiar to anyone who follows European politics: a far-right party exploits its exclusion from the mainstream, portraying its centrist opponents as out-of-touch elites while casting itself as the true voice of the people; it gains media attention with its provocative rhetoric and policies, and becomes influential in framing immigration as the most pressing problem the country faces. The political centre shifts to the right as mainstream parties promise stricter immigration measures in order to persuade voters to stick with them. Wiedel’s success in achieving this rightward shift in Germany echoes that of Nigel Farage in the UK, Marine Le Pen in France, and Giorgia Meloni in Italy.

Of course, there are factors specific to Germany that can explain how the AfD has achieved such success. One of these is the legacy of the reunification of a divided Germany at the end of the Cold War – look at a map of the AfD’s support and you will see the old inner German border reappear. The party’s base is in what was once East Germany, a part of the country that Manès Weisskircher describes as having wrestled with multiple economic problems since reunification: unemployment, emigration to western Germany, and lower average income and wealth than the west. Weisskircher also notes a divide in terms of immigration, with eastern Germany having experienced relatively low immigration prior to the 2010s, such that “it is the share of the increase in numbers of immigrants rather than high absolute numbers which matters for local AfD strength.” 

The AfD’s manifesto makes promises that the party will never need to keep – it promises to stop the phasing out of lignite-fired power generation, ignoring the threat it poses to human health and the environment. Parts of the manifesto seem absurd and deliberately provocative – wind turbines are an intolerably enormous threat to the environment, apparently, but coal-fired power plants are not. It also comes across as self-contradictory – its nationalism is coupled with a call for greater dependence on Russian gas via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Similarly muddled messaging on energy policy has come out of Reform UK, with its leader Richard Tice recently blaming the renewable energy sector for high energy bills, rather than the rising price of gas – a tax on the sector will push bills down, Tice claims. In both cases, the policy platform does not need to make sense, as neither the AfD nor Reform UK are expecting to form a government anytime soon where they will actually need to implement their policies on energy or the environment; for now they can benefit from simply provoking their opponents and rallying their supporters around yet another marker of identity, and yet another policy area will be affected by an Us vs Them mindset.

Merz has ruled out a coalition with the AfD, but that does not mean that its influence will not be felt on the next German government. Even prior to the election, Merz had already undermined the firewall by relying on the AfD for support in a Bundestag vote on stricter immigration measures. During the election campaign, both the SPD and CDU sought to win back votes from the AfD by talking tough on immigration while watering down their commitments to protecting the climate. In this way, the AfD does not need to tear down the firewall completely, having had success in setting the agenda for political discourse and forcing the other parties to react.

How might the AfD’s rise be stopped? Two complementary strategies come to mind, the first being to address the geographical inequality between eastern and western Germany. Tackling the specific economic factors that helped the AfD to make inroads in eastern Germany could undermine the appeal of parties like the AfD in the long-run. The second strategy would be to contest the AfD’s account of the problem facing Germany. Rather than uncritically accepting the terms of the debate, other parties ought to do the hard work of offering persuasive alternative accounts of the problems facing ordinary Germans, rather than letting the far-right set the agenda. The Left Party – itself a descendent of the Socialist Unity Party that ruled East Germany – has had some success with a similar approach in the recent election, outperforming expectations with a campaign that focused on economic issues like employment, prices, and rent, eschewing other parties’ attempts to match the AfD’s tone on immigration.

While the AfD will have a strong presence in the Bundestag over the next few years, it is worth remembering that about four in every five votes went to other parties – a future dominated by the AfD is by no means guaranteed. Parties opposed to the far-right ought to contest the AfD’s account of the situation facing Germany today, rather than trying to placate voters by mimicking their rhetoric and policies on immigration. This does not mean ceding the rhetorical battleground to the AfD but rather involves a greater contestation of the AfD’s worldview, and for once offering of a genuine alternative.