Germany and far-Right electoral breakthroughs don’t mix well. So it is no surprise that the populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) topping the poll in state elections in Thuringia, a region where the Nazis enjoyed early electoral success, and coming close to doing the same in neighbouring Saxony, is cause for international consternation. But how significant is it?
The AfD scored just under 33 per cent of the vote in Thuringia, up nearly 10 percentage points from the last state election five years ago, and 30 per cent in Saxony, up a much more modest 3 per cent. In neither is the AfD at all likely to lead, or indeed even be part, of the new state government as other parties are all pledged to have nothing to do with them – and the AfD commands no majority in the legislatures elected under a form of proportional representation.
Whilst in other places the so-called firewall against the populist Right is fraying, this is unlikely to happen in Thuringia. The local leader of the AfD, Björn Hocke, heads up the most volkish, hardline wing of the party and has convictions for using Nazi era, albeit ambiguous, language.
The AfD has had a different trajectory from other populist, insurgent parties. Whilst most have over time moderated their message and tried to present themselves as more salonfähig, the opposite is the case with the AfD. Founded by a group of pro-market economists in 2013 to oppose further EU integration and attempt to disentangle Germany from the mess that is the Euro, successive leaderships of the party have been forced out as the AfD moved in an ever more nationalist direction. First the economists left, saying new leader Frauke Petry was too far to the Right; Petry followed the same path, as in turn did her successor.
The rise of the AfD is clearly a symptom of deep public disquiet about mass migration, with recent stabbings and high profile crimes further fuelling an already febrile atmosphere. Thuringia is actually a part of Germany which has seen fewer incomers than most regions, although the fact that immigration is a hot political issue in areas least affected by it is not unusual.
But that is not the whole story. It is no coincidence that Thuringia and Saxony are in the former East Germany. Neither has the appearance of a post industrial wasteland. The many billions poured into reconstruction since unification in 1990 have caused an outward transformation of these states. Saxon cities Dresden and Leipzig and Thuringia’s Weimar are amongst the most attractive in Germany (admittedly perhaps not a very high benchmark thanks to the efforts of the RAF and the rapid post-war, anything goes so long as it has a roof-type reconstruction of places like Cologne). And even obscurer Thuringian places, like Erfurt and Altenburg, have their charm.
Whilst lagging behind their western counterparts their economic data too is not dire – certainly considerably better than that for parts of the UK. As Germans never tire of pointing out, regional economic disparities today are lower in their country than the UK, despite the economic basket case that was the former East Germany at the time of its dissolution in 1990.
What this hides is the steep decline in population these regions have experienced: Thuringia’s population has fallen from 2.7 million in 1990 to 2.1 million today, Saxony’s from 4.8 million to 4 million. And this understates the level of depopulation, because whilst regional hubs such as Dresden have not seen population falls, they have been all the steeper in rural areas and small towns.
35 years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, large parts of the former East Germany are still in decline – and this has political repercussions.
The rise of the AfD is perhaps not even the most striking story of these elections. In Thuringia especially, the Left Party – the successor of East Germany’s former ruling party (well, to be precise, the successor of its successor) has been a major political force. In the 2019 elections it was the largest party, securing 31 per cent of the vote.
As the Left Party sought to expand into the former West Germany, it has taken on-board the usual concerns of western radicalism: wokery and identity politics. This has led the party’s star performer Sahra Wagenknecht to break away and set up her own movement. This party – campaigning on far-Left economics, combined with anti-wokery, Russophilia and calls for a robust stance on immigration – coming from zero, gained nearly 12 per cent of the vote in Saxony and 16 per cent in Thuringia. The Left Party hung onto 13 per cent of the vote in the latter.
What should be the real takeaway from these elections is that parties outside the democratic mainstream gained nearly 60 per cent of the vote in Thuringia and 47 per cent in Saxony. That should be the real cause for concern and suggests that the project of completing the integration of the former East Germany into the West is far from complete – indeed it may be going into reverse.