Elisabeth Dampier

Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been declared ‘right-wing extremist’ who are ‘against the free democratic order’ by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) can now increase its investigation of the AfD, including tapping their phones, intercepting their electronic communications, and recruiting informants within the party. Public servants, especially those in the police or military, may find themselves fired unless they leave the party. Members of the party may find themselves barred from gun ownership. Some in public sector television are calling for the AfD to be kept off the airwaves. The AfD is being treated as though it were a dangerous fringe group, when in fact it is the second-largest party in Germany.

Germany has a new government. It may also have a new government in waiting. On the same day that the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD) announced they had concluded coalition talks to form a government, a poll showed the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the most popular party in Germany. A quarter of all voters now support the AfD. Since the election in February, the CDU has lost 5 per cent of its support. It's easy to see where it all went wrong for the CDU. Having promised fiscal responsibility, moderate right-wing governance, and the return of controlled borders, the party has instead rolled into bed with the SPD.

The German Social Democratic party (SPD) has published its working paper on immigration. It calls for half a million more migrants every year, no deportation of illegal immigrants unless they are extremely violent, voting rights for foreigners, automatic citizenship after 25 years, and a new ministry for immigration and integration. You would think the left-wing party was in no position to make demands. After all, the SPD led the coalition government which lost the last election, when it failed to be one of the top two parties for the first time since the 19th century. But the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, which won the most votes in the election, has ruled out dealing with Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came second.

‘Berlin is more East than West’, said Thilo Sarrazin. A member of the centre-left SPD, in 2010 he published Germany Abolishes Itself, a book which warned about the impact of mass immigration. It sold over one million copies in a year but it went down less well with his own party, which tried to kick him out for writing the book. In 2020, after three attempts, the party finally succeeded, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Over the course of those ten years, the SPD’s grasp on Berlin, which they had ruled since reunification, slipped away from them, as mass immigration not only changed the country but also its politics. Berlin has a reputation for being left-wing, yet it now has a CDU mayor, and in last week’s federal election the hard-right AfD won several districts.

Germany is still a divided country – at least when you look at its electoral map. After this weekend’s federal election, the east of the country is coloured in the light blue of the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), while the west is dominated by the black of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with scattered green and red spots that show where the Greens and the Social Democratic party (SPD) have maintained their left-wing hold on the cities. One third of all voters were undecided just one week before the election. That shows how many voters felt dissatisfied with all the parties. As expected, the CDU did best in the election, achieving 28.5 per cent of the vote, above the AfD on 20 per cent. However, the CDU shouldn’t celebrate yet.