John Kampfner is a British author, broadcaster and commentator. His new book, “Braver New World: The Countries Daring to Do Things Others Won’t,” was published in April. He is a regular POLITICO columnist.
Ahead of this September’s regional elections, Germany is in existential panic.
As the country’s mainstream parties flounder, and the ruling coalition stumbles from one non-reform to another, the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is preparing for power.
What once seemed seconded only to the realm of theory is now in danger of becoming reality: the establishment of the country’s first AfD-led state government after the election in the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt.
So far, opinion polls have consistently shown support for the AfD at 40 percent or more. And no matter what hits come the party’s way — whether it be the vagaries of U.S. President Donald Trump, the threats of cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin or ongoing internal allegations of nepotism, spying and corruption — there are no signs of its appeal fading. It is the new Teflon party.
What this means is that unless smaller parties like the struggling Greens or the almost-extinct Free Democrats make it over the 5-percent threshold for representation, the AfD will secure enough votes to run Saxony-Anhalt on its own.
Even if that doesn’t happen, even if the party unexpectedly loses some support in the coming months, the only way to keep it out of government will be for all the other parties to cobble together an unwieldy coalition that would almost certainly collapse.
And the AfD’s arrival in an executive role would have seismic consequences.
For starters, it would greatly change life in Saxony-Anhalt, the small region of just over 2 million people. It would affect the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, which is made up of the country’s 16 states. It would make it extremely difficult for the bodies that coordinate regional administrations to share information. And it would send ripples across the federal parliament, the Bundestag, as well as the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
More broadly, it would change German society for good. It would be a critical fork in the road for far-right populist movements across Europe. And it would put a spring in the step of the Trump administration, which has worked ceaselessly to promote the AfD’s cause.
Yet, apart from Merz prodding his own Christian Democratic Union and its coalition partners to enact some reforms before the summer parliamentary recess next month, there is little sign that Germany’s politicians or public are prepared for the true scale of the shock ahead.
That lack of preparedness will come back to haunt them.
The division of powers between Germany’s federal government and its states may be demarcated under the country’s tightly drawn constitution, but that won’t stop the AfD from making significant changes where it can, and performatively testing the limits where it cannot.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the government’s domestic intelligence service, has already labeled the AfD’s regional chapter as “right-wing extremist” — a decision that was criticized by Trump’s White House. But after a legal challenge, a court issued a temporary injunction in February to stop the use of the term until it issued a final ruling.
All this is grist for the mill of Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate and likely first regional premier in Saxony-Anhalt.
With preparations now underway to build his administration, Siegmund insists he is “committed to rule of law” and will make his choices based on merit alone — but that’s not how MAGA does it. It is not how he will do it either.
A former salesman, the 35 year-old Siegmund was initially a member of the CDU before shifting to the AfD a decade ago. He is now one of the party’s rising stars: His TikTok account is among the most popular social media accounts in the country, winning over many of the younger residents in Saxony-Anhalt, which has a high unemployment rate. Slick and good at posing for the cameras, Siegmund has also promised elderly voters he will bring their “good, old, secure Germany back.”
And when the party’s regional chapter launched a 150-page program in April, it was not lacking in ambition. In it, Siegmund is promising to either deport refugees or move them into “group homes” — even though Saxony-Anhalt is one of the most ethnically homogeneous parts of the country with only 1 in 13 citizens of migration background.
The party is also vowing to defund public broadcasters deemed hostile and unpatriotic, ban all symbols of “woke” culture, including gay pride flags in schools, and is calling for the promotion of “patriotic” culture. In a frightening echo of the 1930s, it has also slammed the Bauhaus art movement, which has strong roots in Saxony-Anhalt.
Then comes the natalism: Blaming so-called “sexual deviations and non-reproductive lifestyles” for the country’s low birth rate, the party is promising generous tax breaks and free childcare to families consisting of “a father, a mother and as many children as possible” as part of its fight against “the extinction of the German people.”
Although foreign policy is the responsibility of the federal government, Siegmund is also calling for an end to sanctions against Russia. He wants to bring back Russian language classes in schools and for Russian students to return as part of exchange programs. As for Ukrainians, he wants them designated as illegal migrants rather than war refugees.
If Siegmund were to come to power, he would get some of these measures through. And while some would be stalled, either in the courts or by the federal government, that would only reinforce the party’s image among its growing faithful as the victim of the “deep state.”
Asked in a POLITICO Playbook last November whether the Holocaust had marked “the worst of mankind,” Siegmund replied: ‘I don’t presume to judge that because I can’t process the whole of mankind.”
Unlike other populist right-wing movements in Europe, such as National Rally in France or Britain’s Reform UK, so far the AfD has not moderated its pitch — even in the face of increasing hostility toward Trump across the continent since the start of the war in Iran. Nor does Putin’s bellicosity seem to be doing the party any harm. In fact, even Christian-Democrat and Social-Democrat politicians in the former East would like warmer relations with Moscow.
The AfD is essentially an amalgam of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s slightly moderate ultra-right mold and the far-right extreme — and only one of those wings is in the ascendant.
And while many Germans are petrified by what Saxony-Anhalt might bring, that fear appears to be manifesting in paralysis.
POLITICO occasionally publishes opinion pieces from guest authors to offer our readers a range of perspectives on the intersection of power and politics. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of POLITICO.