The growing popularity of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) has become an unpalatable feature of Europe’s political landscape. Last summer it won a district election outright for the first time since being founded in 2013. On a virulently xenophobic platform, it now lies second in national polls and leads in three eastern states that will hold elections in the autumn. As chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government has struggled to navigate the multiple challenges of Covid, Ukraine, the cost of living crisis and the green transition, the AfD has exploited widespread insecurity and hardship for its own unpleasant ends.
Concern has been compounded by renewed fears that the party represents a material threat to Germany’s postwar constitution. On Sunday, Mr Scholz and his foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, joined thousands of marchers participating in a demonstration in Potsdam to “defend democracy”. The catalyst was the revelation that in November, senior AfD figures joined with other prominent far-right extremists to discuss a plan for forced mass deportations of migrants. Those discussed as problematic allegedly included German citizens with migrant roots, if it was judged they did “not adapt to the majority society”. Among those present was an adviser to the AfD’s co-leader, Alice Weidel.
Such ideas are flagrantly at odds with the constitution, which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity. The AfD’s leadership has distanced itself from the meeting, but failed to condemn those who attended. According to the investigative website that broke the story, the so-called “re-migration” plan was agreed in principle by participants, though there were doubts over its feasibility.
This alarming episode serves as another wake-up call regarding the dark forces that are finding their way into the mainstream via the success of the AfD. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has previously classified party organisations in eight of the country’s 16 federal states as either “proven to be right-wing extremist” or “suspected to be right‑wing extremist”.
The shocking nature of the latest disclosures has led to calls for the party to be banned by the federal constitutional court. Given a high legal bar, that might be very difficult to achieve. Perhaps more importantly, the process would also run the risk of being counterproductive, reinforcing the AfD’s anti-establishment credentials at a time when it has acquired significant political momentum. Nevertheless, it is an option that need not be ruled out, and may serve to concentrate the minds of the party’s more moderate elements. At a minimum, the Potsdam affair underlines the vital importance of maintaining the political cordon sanitaire at a federal level, designed to keep the AfD out of any governing coalition. The centre-right Christian Democratic Union bears a special responsibility here.
Ultimately, a party that began life as a German variant of Euroscepticism, before pivoting to an extreme anti-immigration agenda, needs to be defeated through a battle for hearts and minds. As the German-British historian Katja Hoyer has written, the AfD has become a populist “vent” for a widespread sense of crisis. Addressing that will require greater ambition and imagination from a mainstream political class that sometimes appears overly determined to hang on to old economic orthodoxies. The presence of Germany’s chancellor and foreign minister on Sunday’s march in Potsdam illustrates how high the stakes are.
