TOBY ABSE warns of the shadow of the Far Right looming over the country’s forthcoming general election
LAST autumn’s elections in three East German Lander had a significance that went far beyond the local, or even the national, causing shock waves all over Western Europe. Not only did they ultimately bring down Germany’s federal coalition, prompting a fresh general election on 23rd February. It was also the first time since 1945 that a Far Right party, at least some of whose members and leaders made no secret of their neo-Nazi sympathies, had either won (Thuringia) or come a close second (Saxony, Brandenberg) in any German election. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) scored around 30% in all three contests – 33.1% in Thuringia, 30.5% in Saxony and 29.4% in Brandenberg.
Transcontinental trends
There are a number of reasons for the AfD’s success in these elections, some of which are international, some of which are national, and yet others which are specific to the former GDR (East Germany). Although the emergence of the AfD as a serious force in German politics started about five years ago, its recent success is in part a reflection of a Europe-wide trend: Far Right anti-migrant parties are a dominant force in Italian, French and Dutch politics. Whilst first Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) and then, more recently, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) have distanced themselves from the AfD due to the embarrassing tendency of leading AfD figures to engage in public apologias for the SS or in Holocaust denial, there is an underlying similarity between all three groupings – all of which in varying degrees identify with the losing side in World War Two. Surprisingly, the AfD’s early history is less sinister than that of the FN/RN or the MSI/AN/FdI – it started off as a neo-liberal Eurosceptic force akin to the early UKIP of Alan Sked, before being taken over by Nazi sympathisers.
The specifically German reasons for the AfD’s breakthrough at the national level – it was second only to the CDU/CSU in the 2024 European Union elections – are the economic crisis into which Germany was plunged by the Russo-Ukrainian war after February 2022, and the unpopularity of the quarrelsome ‘traffic lights’ coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP. Germany’s close economic links with Russia, particularly but not exclusively in terms of relatively cheap gas, made it more vulnerable than France or Italy. The spectacular blowing up of the Nordstream 1 and Nordstream 2 gas pipelines by either Ukrainian or more probably US agents had a devastating impact. There was no possibility of a gradual transition away from Russian gas of the kind some other Nato or EU countries managed. The entire German economy has been plunged into recession as a result of a massive rise in fuel prices
The depth of the crisis in Europe’s leading industrial economy, which affected all fuel consuming sectors, such as steel and chemicals, has been made totally apparent in its effect on the German car industry in general, and on Volkswagen in particular. The threat of massive redundancies in (and possible closure of ) VW German plants – as opposed to its factories outside Germany, which employ cheaper foreign labour – has eroded confidence in the competence of the ‘traffic lights’ coalition.
The conflict between the SPD (which is now belatedly trying to find a way of squaring a more Keynesian approach with Germany’s traditional extremely rigid budgetary rules) and the hardline neo-liberals of the FDP, has proved impossible to resolve. In November, Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz sacked his FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindner. The FDP is increasingly unpopular electorally, but its seats in the current Bundestag were thought to be necessary for the survival of Scholz’s coalition. Scholz was the leader of a minority SPD-Green coalition, whose collapse paved the way, inexorably, to the general election in February.
The Greens have also lost support. This is not just due to the way the right-wing parties (CDU and AfD) are blaming ecological policies for Germany’s economic woes, but also because younger voters see the Greens as more interested in holding on to governmental office than in seriously pushing a green agenda. The former leaders of the Greens’ Youth Organisation have left the party, which is now on very poor terms with Greta Thunberg’s supporters in Fridays For Future. Moreover, the German Greens have been the most hawkish party in relation to the Ukraine war, which is not a popular stance anywhere in the country, and least so in the East.
The AfD’s success in the East is not due to a highly mobilised extreme right-wing party taking advantage of low voter turnout, as Meloni’s FdI has done in all recent elections in Italy. On the contrary, the Brandenberg turnout was 74%, 13% more than in 2019. Saxony’s was 74.4%, and Thuringia’s 73.6%. In short, the AfD not only mobilises its hardcore supporters and wins over previous supporters of mainstream parties, but is also good at influencing habitual abstainers and, worryingly, new young voters. Its use of TikTok – a novelty in the political exploitation of social media, which is generally concentrated on Facebook, Twitter/X and Telegram – played quite a role in its high score amongst young voters.
Racist paradox
Two of the three Eastern regions – Saxony and Thuringia – have very few non-European immigrants, so it seems unlikely that the AfD’s rabidly anti-migrant stance was the only factor in its success in the East, even allowing for the apparent paradox that racist parties sometimes have a much stronger base in completely white areas than in more ethnically mixed ones. Therefore it seems reasonable to suggest that the AfD’s success in East Germany is in quite some measure due to its becoming a vehicle for the obvious discontent with their treatment by the ‘Wessies’ in the 35 years since reunification.
Ostalgie
It needs to be emphasised that the average wage in the East is consistently below the West German average, that the older generation were embittered by the fact that many GDR professional qualifications were not recognised by the Federal Republic, and that the population has fallen, as many better qualified youngsters head west in search of a better life.
In earlier years, a lot of the understandable resentment at the savage capitalist restoration, which dismantled and/or privatised East Germany’s industrial base, was channelled by the Linke (Left), a party whose roots in the old SED made it the obvious choice for those who experienced Ostalgie. The Linke has been weakened by a recent split led by Sahra Wagenknecht, who has founded her own party, the BSW (Bündnis Sahra Wagnenknecht), which gained 15.8% in Thuringia, 11.8% in Saxony, and 13.4% in Brandenberg. Even in Thuringia, the BSW outpolled the residual Linke, which still scored 13.1%, whilst in Saxony the Linke sank to 4.5%, only maintaining a marginal presence in the regional parliament by winning a few FPTP constituencies in Leipzig.
The BSW has been described by its opponents as ‘redbrown’. Wagenknecht prefers the description ‘conservative left’. Wagenknecht’s stance on immigration is a disgrace, even if it is milder than that of the AfD (which on occasion has called not just for no more immigration but for the mass deportation of all German citizens of Arab or Turkish origin). Nonetheless Wagenknecht does put forward some policies in defence of the working class that are clearly to the left of the SPD, and was the organiser and lead speaker at a Berlin rally last October on the anniversary of reunification, calling for ceasefires in both the Gaza and Ukraine wars. The BSW is the only German party which has taken an openly pro-Palestinian line. For obvious historical reasons, the mainstream parties compete with each other in displaying pro-Israeli fervour.
Whilst the defeat of the three parties that made up the ‘traffic lights’ coalition in the forthcoming general election seems a foregone conclusion, it remains to be seen whether a victorious CDU/CSU will opt for a new Grand Coalition with the SPD, and resist any temptation to follow its Austrian Christian Democratic counterpart in doing deals with the neo-Nazis.
Toby Abse is a member of the Socialist Alliance and AGS national committees
Alliance for Green Socialism 