Will the German centre hold?

The symbolism of the date of Thuringia and Saxony’s recent elections will have been lost on many, including some who voted for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Did they remember that September 1, 1939, was the beginning of World War II, when Nazi troops invaded Poland? Did they realise that September 1930 was when the Nazis first gained a significant share of the vote in an election (21%), and in the very state of Thuringia, where the AfD finished first with over 30%?
Such historical references probably carry little weight with AfD voters or those who cast ballots for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a pro-Russian, anti-American socialist movement that is wilfully oblivious to the atrocities committed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army in Ukraine. One wonders if those who voted for the Nazis or the Communists in 1930 understood the consequences of their choice, and one can now ask the same about the Germans who are rallying to the AfD and BSW.
Together, these two extremist parties won nearly half of the vote in both Thuringia and Saxony. How is this possible in a country that has suffered so much from extremist politics, where similar decisions by voters in the past led to mass death and devastation? Germany is supposed to be the poster child of democratic renewal, proof that nations can redeem themselves and truly mean it when they say, “Never again.”
Of course, 2024 is not 1930. But political developments in Germany are troubling. While right-wing extremists probably make up 8% of the electorate, and authoritarian socialists another 2%, these parties did not win just 10% of the vote. They secured 4-5 times that. Why?
After Germany’s reunification in 1990, the country’s small base of extremist voters wasn’t much of a problem, because the far right had no political home and generally feared to come out in the open, while the far left morphed into Die Linke (The Left), which became tamer and more mainstream over time. In recent years, however, the AfD has managed to consolidate the right fringe by taking advantage of voters’ anxieties over immigration. And in just the past few months, the demise of Die Linke has opened the door for the populist BSW.
As for this month’s elections, these parties owe their success partly to the political culture of the former East Germany, where political parties are less grounded in society and have fewer members. As a result, the party system is more fluid than in the western part of the country, and voters tend to be more “footloose” about their party allegiances. Eastern Germany is also among the European Union’s most secular regions; churches play little role in political life, and people tend to be less engaged in civil society overall. Political protest is less likely to be channelled through traditional parties and institutions than through the streets, as with the marches led by PEGIDA (“Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West”).
Moreover, even 35 years after the Berlin Wall came down, many eastern Germans view themselves as second-class citizens. Western Germany’s economic, political, and cultural dominance has fuelled a victim narrative among eastern Germans. Add the demographic depletion of the countryside and the ageing of local populations, and you are left with a collective feeling of being disrespected and “left behind.” Eastern Germans’ sense that they are “strangers in their own land,” to borrow sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild’s description of Donald Trump’s supporters, is eagerly exploited by political entrepreneurs like Sahra Wagenknecht and the AfD’s Björn Höcke.
The differences between eastern and western Germany today are less economic than social and cultural. To transform latent discontent into a preference for radical ideas and a rejection of the system requires some kind of “trigger point.” Examples of triggers (which can be real or imagined) include the perception of uncontrolled migration (in fact, there are fewer people with migration backgrounds in eastern Germany – one in nine – than in western Germany – one in three); the “Western” reaction to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; and, critically, the performance of the current coalition government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Germany’s so-called traffic-light coalition – comprising the Social Democrats, the Free Democrats, and the Greens – is very unpopular in eastern Germany. Collectively, the three parties received less than 10% of the vote in both Saxony and Thuringia. The coalition is seen as divided, aloof, obsessed with regulations and cost-cutting, and resistant to ordinary citizens’ concerns – and this at a time when the country’s infrastructure is crumbling, the economy is in the doldrums, and migrants are supposedly siphoning generous social benefits.
In many respects, this is a familiar story across Western democracies. The question now is whether Germany can neutralise or at least beat back the extremist threat. One obvious first step is for other parties to show that they are taking the electorate’s concerns seriously, and to recognise that sociocultural factors, not economic issues, are driving the discontent. Efforts to increase eastern Germans’ share on corporate boards, in the media, and at the top of major institutions might help.
But mainstream parties should not adopt the extremists’ xenophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-EU rhetoric. Even if it means suffering short-term losses, they must preserve their core values. Playing the extremists’ own game is a mistake that would make it even more difficult to stem the AfD/BSW tide over the long term.
To be sure, all three coalition parties seem politically and programmatically exhausted. In their remaining year in power, they should be careful not to create more confusion than they already have through contradictory messaging. They should be better at communication and focus on making as few mistakes as possible in policy implementation, while preparing to serve, come late 2025, as opposition parties or junior partners in the next federal government, which will most likely be a Christian Democrat-led coalition.
In the meantime, Thuringia and Saxony (and probably also Brandenburg, where elections will take place later this month) will be in a political stalemate, since no other party is willing to co-operate with the AfD. Germany’s centre probably will hold, largely because extremist eastern German voters will not outweigh the much more numerous western German mainstream. Nonetheless, the centre will be smaller, and with many new dents.
— Project Syndicate
• Helmut K Anheier is Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School in Berlin and Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and Social Welfare at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs.