For a long time, the cordon sanitaire seemed an unshakable political fact in Germany. And still no party in Germany wants to cooperate with the radical right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). “Die Brandmauer steht”, CDU chairman and opposition leader Friedrich Merz emphasizes again and again. A few years ago, Merz even vowed to expel any Christian Democrat who collaborates with AfD.
But after two local elections were won by AfD candidates in recent weeks, “the firewall” is faltering. In the Sonneberg district, a region in the southernmost tip of Thuringia with a population of almost sixty thousand, AfD candidate Robert Sesselman was ‘Land Rat’ elected. In the town of Raghun-Jessnitz (pop. 9,000) in southern Saxony-Anhalt, AfD member Hannes Loth won the mayoral election over his CDU competitor. This makes Loth and Sesselman the first AfD members to be elected as directors; until now, only a formerly non-party mayor in Baden-Württemberg became a member of the AfD in office.
The success of the two AfD members follows a national trend: in polls, the party of chairmen Alice Weidel (44) and Timo Chrupalla (48) is at about 20 percent. This puts the party in second place, behind the CDU/CSU (27 percent), but ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD (18 percent). Regular Bundestag elections are not scheduled until the autumn of 2025, but in the meantime there are a number of important state elections, such as in Thuringia in 2024. The AfD is now polling 34 percent there.
The AfD branch in Thuringia, led by Björn Höcke, is seen by the German internal security service as right-wing extremist and a threat to the democratic order. According to the services, the youth wing of the AfD is also extremist and under observation. At the same time, the AfD board announced that the party wants to present a candidate for chancellor in the next elections in 2025 and to run for the highest office. On Monday it was announced that Robert Sesselman, who won in Sonneberg in Thuringia, can be appointed after an investigation by the internal security service: according to the service, there are no indications that he belongs to the extremist, democracy-undermining part of the AfD.
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Photo Martin Schutt/AP
Julia Reuschenbach is a political scientist at the Freie Universität Berlin and conducts research into parties and electoral behaviour. “The AfD has become increasingly radical since 2015,” says Reuschenbach. Founded in 2013 by Eurosceptics, the AfD found a new audience in 2015 among Germans hostile to migration. “It is a nationalist party, it matters ‘Germany First’. At the very least, the AfD is a party with far-right views. But as the Homeland Security report shows, it is also largely a party that seeks to undermine the democratic order.”
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Why is the cordon sanitaire held on so strongly in Germany, unlike in other European countries?
“In other European countries there was initially also the idea that as a conservative party you should not cooperate with the populist right, but many parties have given up that resistance over time. In many European countries, in Italy for example, but also in the Netherlands, there have been radical right-wing parties for decades. Germany is a bit behind in this respect. Moreover, conservative parties have partly adopted the views and language of right-wing populists. It is precisely because of this that the right-wing populist parties have grown, and in some places majorities are no longer possible without right-wing populists: because their positions and their language have become normalized.”
In Germany, then, is it only a matter of time before coalitions are formed with the AfD, despite the assurances of all the other parties?
“We already see that to some extent, through cooperation at a local level. But it will become increasingly difficult to form a majority government without the AfD. Germany has so far had a sort of aversion to minority coalitions; we have to get used to that and there should be a debate about it now.”
What advice would you give the local politicians in Sonneberg?
“The candidate has now been elected, that is democracy, you have to make do with that. For the local politicians, the dilemma is now to work together, on the one hand, to prevent absolute standstill. On the other hand, as a politician you have to keep a clear distance in terms of content. For example, the AfD candidate in Sonneberg has campaigned almost exclusively on issues at the national level, against the Scholz government, against their new energy law [die inhoudt dat verwarmingen op gas en op aardolie worden uitgefaseerd], against migration. But a Landrat has nothing to do with that.”
Why is the AfD so popular right now? Because the sense of crisis was greater shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine or in the fall, when gas shortages loomed.
“I have to mention four points. Firstly, the positions are mainly made mainstream by the CDU and CSU, for example when Christian Democrats talk about ‘climate dictatorship’ [voormalig minister van Gezondheid Jens Spahn] or “compulsive veganism” [minister-president van Beieren Markus Söder]. Such language also makes that of the radical right parties quite normal, and that also makes it more normal to vote for them.
“Secondly, as elsewhere in Europe, municipalities have capacity problems for the reception of refugees. Thirdly, people are currently not satisfied with the work of the Scholz government. Finally, the rise in the polls also helps: due to the apparent success of the party now, it is more and more socially accepted to agree with the party and its views.”
Why is the party still so strong in the new federal states in the east of the country?
“In parts of the former East Germany, conditions are favorable for the AfD. Regions where the aging population is high and many men live alone, because women and highly educated young people have left the region. Because few inherit anything in East Germany, there is less wealth, less prosperity and less security. The fear of social decline and loss of prosperity is, due to the experiences of many, much greater in the 1990s than in West Germany. Moreover, there is little experience with migration. Labor migrants in the GDR hardly came into contact with other residents. There is not, as in the Ruhr area, for example, decades of experience with other cultures.”
But, Reuschenbach points out, the AfD is not just an East German problem. In Thuringia, the AfD is allowed to stand at 34 percent in polls; in North Rhine-Westphalia, the party is now polling around 13 percent. But because North Rhine-Westphalia (population 17.9 million) is almost nine times as many as Thuringia (2.1 million), there are more AfD voters in North Rhine-Westphalia than in Thuringia.
Are you concerned about that high score in the polls?
“Research shows that in Germany there has always been an extreme right-wing voter group of about 10 percent. Only there was no party that represented them on a national level. Those people have not suddenly become right-wing extremists in the past ten years.
“I think the other parties should concentrate much more on the regions. There the parties have been far too invisible, and in East Germany the parties have largely left the region to the AfD. The conversation should also start now about how things should go in the future, if the AfD becomes the largest somewhere.”