Rarely do some local elections attract global attention. For the New York Times, the election results in the East German states of Thuringia and Saxony were noteworthy. breaking news. "The Germans in the east of the country are leaning towards extremes," writes the American newspaper. And that it is an extraordinary result of the extreme right Alternatives for Germany (AfD) "a worrying indicator for the state and future of German democracy".
Germany ElectionElection poster Alternatives for Germany: Summer, sun, remigration / Photo: AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
For the "Washington Post", even two European correspondents reported on the elections in small Thuringia with 2,1 and Saxony with about 4,8 million inhabitants. Headline: "Right-wing extremists won in a German province for the first time after the Second World War."
For the "Guardian", the rise of the AfD shows that the gap between the East and the West of Germany is growing, and that the parties that represent the values of liberal democracy should urgently start looking beyond their noses if they want to stop this trend. All "liberal" European media reported in a similar tone and with equal concern for the state of German society after yesterday's regional elections.
Victory of the "neo-Nazis"
In Weimar in Thuringia, the city of Goethe, Schiller, the Bauhaus and the "Buchenwald" concentration camp, supporters of the so-called of traditional democratic values, a few days before the provincial elections on September 1, they behaved as if they were on a bus that was speeding unstoppably towards the abyss. Or like the passengers of a car stuck on the tracks towards which a black iron train with a red swastika drawn on its locomotive roars. Although all opinion polls predicted that the "neo-Nazis" would win convincingly with over 30 percent of the vote, they were hoping for a miracle.
Photo: AP Photo/Markus SchreiberAfD supporters in Thuringia / Photo: AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
No miracle happened. According to the preliminary results, the AfD won 32,8 percent of the votes in Thuringia, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) finished in second place with 23,6 percent. With a loss of almost 20 percent of support, the ruling Left won only 13,1 percent, and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) won a paltry 6,1 percent. The newly founded Alliance Sarah Wagenknecht (BSW), which emerged from the Left, reached 15,8 percent. BSW could best be described as a left that, like any left, strives for a different redistribution of surplus value, but its members do not sing "International", but boast of national and patriotic attributes. The Greens and Liberals, who are in power at the federal level in coalition with the SPD, did not pass the census.
In Saxony, however, the CDU finished in first place with 31,9 percent of the votes won, while the AfD scored 30,6 percent. The Greens barely crossed the threshold with 5,1 percent, the SPD has an insignificant 7,3 percent, and the Sara Wagenknecht Alliance reached 11,8 percent. The left in Saxony did not pass the 5 percent threshold.
When the votes in both provinces are added up, only one in ten votes went to the "traffic light coalition" parties that formed the Federal Government three years ago. Alarm bells are ringing in Berlin.
The Young Germans' Revolt
Even more worrying is the huge popularity of the AFD among young people in these two provinces - about 38 percent of voters between the ages of 16 and 34. The leaders of Germany's extreme right, flirting with Hitler's National Socialism, take strict care not to blatantly ignore strict German laws that forbid any questioning of the Holocaust and Nazi crimes, but their allusions are unmistakable.
Sometime in the 1960s, students of all ages in Germany were taught through the educational system to sprinkle themselves with ashes for the "sins of their fathers and grandfathers." Supported by the mainstream media and messages from the highest political level, this culture of regret has become dominant.
In the meantime, it's about the crimes of the great-grandfather and great-grandfather. Young people began to revolt because Nazi crimes from "prehistory" were being imposed on them as part of their identity. Institutions dealing with confronting the past have failed to find an appropriate narrative to communicate about Nazism with the younger generations.
Instead of "remorse", the AfD offers "pride" for Germany and its history. The holder of the Alternative list in Thuringia, Björn Hecke, was sentenced to a fine of 13.000 euros in May of this year for playing with old Nazi slogans. In 2019, a court ruled that it was permissible to call him a "fascist" in public.
For flirting with Nazism The AfD is unacceptable. even for most European radical right parties.
From the point of view of those who survived the Holocaust and are still alive, the results of the regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony are "deeply depressing". Such a development makes it difficult "the trust they have gained in Germany in the meantime", said the vice-president of the International Auschwitz Committee, Christoph Heubner. Until now, he says, it was unthinkable that such a large number of Germans would vote for a party that flirts with Nazism and that, even for other extreme right-wing parties in Europe, is too burdened with the ballast of the past.
Surfacing
How the provincial governments will be formed now and how all this affects the coalition that is in power in Germany are Germany's troubles. For now, all other parties stick to the old recipe: no cooperation with the Alternative for Germany; the will of the voters will be ignored and the AfD will be kept out of the executive branch.
Germany ElectionProtest against AfD: Racism is not an alternative / Photo: Bodo Marks/dpa via AP
The AfD's previous policy of rejecting and branding voters has, however, had the exact opposite effect. Its rise in the east of the country is not difficult to explain: there is still a lower standard of living than in the west of Germany, unemployment is higher, there is a prevailing feeling of insecurity and doubt in the ruling structures, institutions and media.
But the election campaign was not dominated by local, social or economic ones, but by the so-called big questions: Germany's relationship with Russia and the war in Ukraine and migrants, topics that will not disappear even in the federal elections at the end of September 2025 at the latest, if the current coalition government does not fall apart by then.
In short, for the German right-wingers, Putin is not a black devil and they are in favor of denying or cutting support to Ukraine, and the dark-skinned migrants would prefer to throw all the idiots out of Germany, because they are wasting social assistance, stealing jobs from good Germans, and they also want to they rape Germans, attack Christians with knives, etc.
The historic success of the Alternative in Thuringia and Saxony, despite the united front of all other parties and the vast majority of the media that are against it, gives wings to its voters across the country, encourages them to loudly and proudly come out of their holes to the surface and preach the harmfulness of liberal democracy. Once, as harbingers of evil times, they spilled out of pubs in Munich, today they did it in Erfurt, Weimar and Dresden, and there are similar pubs everywhere, not only in Germany.
No wonder the world's most influential media paid so much attention to the elections in two small German states: if Germany slips to the right of Christian Democratic conservatism, Europe is in big trouble.
