Future of Germany: Rise of the Far Right Movement
AfD Member of the European Parliament, Maximilian Krah at an AfD Rally, 2023
Credit: Vincent Eisfeld / Wikimedia Commons
In recent years, Germany has been a leading power within the European Union (EU). It has been recognized as a leader in energy, natural resources, telecommunication, automotive, and biomedical industries. Germany also holds many of Europe’s major financial centers. In 2023, Germany was faced with a mild recession. This past month, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck reported that Germany’s GDP has been projected to decrease by .2%. This continues the downward trend from the previous year. The recession has added to the economic pressures already facing the state of Thuringia, which has struggled with the aftermath of both the pandemic and the fall of the Berlin Wall. This has led to disputes within the three-party coalition over how to address the recession. Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner, a pro-business member of the Free Democrats. Lindner opposed increasing taxes and expanding government spending to manage the national debt. However, the other two coalition members, the Social Democrats, and the Greens wanted to boost state investment to combat the recession. As a result, Chancellor Scholz now leads the government from a minority position. The Free Democrats withdrew from the coalition following Lindner’s firing. This is a tumultuous time in German politics, with the crumbling of the government and the rise of the far-right party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Additionally, based on regional reactions to President-elect Trump’s election victory in the US, both Europe and the world look toward the nation to see what comes of their democratic process.
When looking at major points of elections with the AfD, it began in 2013 with the recession of several European nations that looked to the EU and Germany for bailouts. The AfD got 4.7% of the federal election vote, not making the 5% threshold. This threshold, which allowed parties to gain seats in the Bundestag, was introduced as they rebuilt Germany following World War II. The fractured political landscape, dominated by numerous small parties, prevented the formation of a unified opposition against the Nazis and enabled their rise to power. In 2017, the party focused on the increased immigration from the Middle East in its campaign, gaining 12.7% of the vote. Currently, the main issues surround high energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, immigration, and the cost of transitioning from gas to green energy. There has been a rising sentiment in Germany that the growth of the AfD, the first far-right party in Germany since the end of World War II, could be a threat to the nation’s democracy. This is especially true considering the AfD’s nationalistic belief that immigrants are starkly different from the German people and they need to “maintain our language and traditions.”
In the Alternative für Deutschland preamble of the “Manifest for Germany,” it states that they: “strive to uphold human dignity, support families with children, retain our western Christian culture, and maintain our language and traditions in a peaceful, democratic, and sovereign nation-state for the German people.” This provides an example of their populist movement, which began growing in 2013 and has recently started to take issues with immigration to Germany. The party claims that freedom of movement within the EU and Germany’s robust social welfare system drive immigrants to move to Germany. Echoing the previous quote, the AfD feels that this increase in immigrants is diluting the German identity and has put too much of a burden on the German people. This has led to an increase in xenophobia, as seen in a 2019 article from Deutsche Welle, stating that the party was distorting crime data, drumming up fear among citizens. Regarding Germany and immigration, Germany has taken 16.5 million foreign-born residents, both within and outside the EU as of 2022.
Regarding economic policies, the party has grown a following as they perpetuate that the German government has lost focus on promoting the welfare of German citizens and has become too globalized. In 2021, Germany was the highest contributor to the EU budget, as per the European Commission data. The AfD believes that taxation needs to be decreased to reduce social welfare, which currently can’t sustain the growing population that they claim is the result of immigration. They also no longer trust the Eurozone as the rule of debt not exceeding 60% of the nation’s GDP hasn’t been upheld and has relied on bailouts from other nations, such as Germany. In addition, the AfD argues that Germany needs to return to a Germany-first mindset and be able to defend itself independently. For instance, they would like to pursue a policy requiring conscription to return and practice non-interference. On the international scale, in their eyes, this would allow them to further the nation’s economic prosperity with less influence of global politics, for example, their ideals that “economic cooperation with Russia should be deepened.”
There has been a growing sentiment that government efforts to support the domestic economy have been insufficient and that too much attention has been paid to international trade. This has led the region of Thuringia to embrace the AfD party, as many there believe that far-right policies will help them. As a result, the AfD party has taken 32.8% of the vote in the region. They feel that the current coalition governments have not been adequate for the livelihood of the citizens. While in the past, the government has been able to move forward with innovating green energy, with the increased gas prices, the German people want to pivot their focus to keep the cost of living down. This has included sentiments that have been reflected in the AfD’s policies, such as a decrease in immigration, as some believe that it increases the strains on social welfare services. This and other items are targeted as cost-saving measures and are seen as a cause for high taxes.
The rise of the AfD was particularly noticeable when 31% of the state of Thuringia voted for the party. This rising sentiment appears from the reunification of East and West Germany, following the fall of the Berlin Wall. When the government worked to unify the two regions, the economy didn’t leave the East well, with rampant unemployment and three million Germans becoming unemployed in the transition in the 1990s. Even today, the region of East Germany is around 80% of the West Germany’s GDP. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, companies residing in Thuringia have suffered from a lack of skilled labor, thus necessitating reliance on professionals from other parts of Germany as well as abroad. Many in the East feel underrepresented – that their concerns haven’t been considered amongst other prominent issues such as immigration and supporting Ukraine in the war. This has supported the belief that the government prioritizes these other issues over its citizens. The populist message presented by the AfD has resonated with the population of the East, who feel that their voices have been overshadowed by other national and global issues.
With the increased difference in policy between the political parties represented in the Bundestag, the most recent coalition has been between the Social Democratic Party, the Free Democratic Party, and The Greens. The government system requires different parties to work together to control the government and better represent the people. However, in this situation, the issues people are facing have caused each party to fall back on different economic policies they believe are best for the country. These divisions led to the firing of the Federal Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner, who is the party leader of the Free Democrats. This was due to disagreements with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats on the best way to revive the German economy. Issues like this, on problems that affect the German people, have split the government, not allowing policy to move forward to help rectify the issue, but causing inaction as nothing can be agreed upon. This seems to make citizens feel that there is no forward movement in addressing problems that people believe need to be fixed domestically.
Given the fear of the rise of this party and what it could mean for German politics, there were some comments about banning the party, similar to the banning of the Communist Party of Germany. When trying to combat the rise of the party and its resonance with the people, it remains difficult for the government to deal with the issues residents face due to a lack of consensus within the coalition leadership. Thus, the government cannot address the problems, so the AfD takes advantage of the situation. While the party’s ideology is worryingly far-right, banning the party may not be the solution. Even if the party is banned, it could reappear in another form nor does that move address the underlying issues that its supporters are feeling. This may also worsen the relationship between those who believe in the AfD and those who support the government. Such an action may seem to AfD supporters that they are trying to eliminate their representation in the federal government, stirring more dislike toward the government. While there is a fear of rapid AfD growth within parliament, other parties refuse to work with the AfD, though they try to pressure the Christian Democratic Union to break from the rest to join together.
As the German government deals with these internal divisions and the rise of the AfD, Europe looks with interest. The AfD’s ability to use the dissatisfaction with the government’s inaction seems to be a coming challenge for Germany’s future if the support for the AfD continues. With the snap election scheduled for February 23, 2025, the German people will have a chance to express their vision for the future of the country. What will be determined is whether they will continue pursuing stable reform or go for the populist promises of the far-right.