Inside Germany’s Growing Right-Wing and Establishment Panic

The story

The German populist-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party has ranked second in national elections polling for almost a year. In some regions, it is clearly first. For the upcoming European Union parliament elections, AfD is tied for second with center-left Social Democrats.

Courts in Germany recently ruled that the party might be extremist, which opens the door for intelligence services wiretapping.

AfD’s success has panicked the establishment. A high schooler was arrested for sharing a pro-AfD video, and an AfD politician was arrested for sharing statistics corroborating that migrants commit more rapes per capita than Germans.

However, the AfD has also caused its own problems. An aide for its top candidate in the E.U. parliamentary elections was outed as a Chinese spy. And late last year, AfD members attended a meeting wherein they discussed deporting German citizens with migrant backgrounds.

Possibly most critically hangs the threat of the party being banned altogether.

“Democracy can be defended”

The AfD vowed to appeal the court’s decision. Re a possible party ban, leadership claimed it could “smell” the establishment’s fear. Unfortunately for AfD, the rest of the European right is unlikely to defend it: the scandals resulted in AfD’s recent expulsion from a supra-European coalition of populist-right parties.

The German government portrayed the court’s decision as proof that “democracy can be defended,” despite the reality that banning the party would disenfranchise voters who prefer it.

Social Democrats announced they would be open to banning the party, though they would not have a majority in parliament. A ban would require other parties, like the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which has been noncommittal.

Behind the rise of the right

The AfD was founded as an E.U. skeptic party shortly before the 2013 German election, when it won only 5 percent of the vote. But it rose to prominence because of the migrant crisis, after Germany admitted millions. While politicians are arrested for discussing the downside, they are legion.

Foreigners comprise 13 percent of Germany’s population but participated in half of all gang rapes. In Frankfurt, they were responsible for every serious sexual assault case. The attacks aren’t new — in 2015, officials tried to hide over 1,000 sexual assaults committed by migrants on New Year’s Eve. And German politicians blamed migrant violence New Year’s Eve 2023 on the far-right.

Events outside Germany likely played a role in the AfD’s rise as well. France’s large migrant population allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to gain a foothold there, and stories of migrant violence elsewhere in Europe have sent shockwaves across the continent.

Working against history

Given Germany’s history, populist-right parties do not fare well. But if the AfD continues its success in 2024’s elections, it could indicate that Germans are increasingly overcoming their reluctance of supporting the right.

In the 2019 and 2014 European Union parliamentary elections, pre-election scandals damaged the AfD and results at the polls were lower than projected. But if the party does well in 2024 despite the scandals, it would suggest that Germans are increasingly committed to voting for AfD, as opposed to doing so out of a brief burst of populist anger.