The AfD, a German national test

Elections in Thuringia, Saxony, Brandenburg and Europe: 2024 could be the jubilee year for the far right. Unless we Germans prove that we learned our lesson in 1945.

The AfD has a good chance of winning the state elections in Thuringia, possibly with an absolute majority. The party would currently receive a third of the vote. So more than one in three people say, yes, the AfD deserves my vote now, they are good, although good, well, at least better than the CDU, SPD, Greens, Left Party and even better than staying at home. The situation is similar in Brandenburg and Saxony.

It doesn't seem to matter how radicalized the party becomes. Björn Höcke can talk like a Goebbels parody and somehow nobody is bothered by it. When was the last time you, dear readers, spoke of "degeneracy"? Have you ever called someone a "spoiler"? Have you recently asked a colleague whether he would rather be a "hammer or an anvil"?

Höcke denies the "pseudo-elite" ever being an "elite of action", he refers to "1000 years of Germany", says "everything for Germany" and invokes "popular sentiment". You can read about where all this weird vocabulary comes from in "Die Zeit" - but I don't think you need to.

Fidgety and helpless

So in 2023, someone who sees himself as the antithesis of a detached elite is speaking in the language of the Nazis who were defeated in 1945. A third of Germans still throw on an SS uniform in the second-hand store and mutter, oh, it fits quite well. Although this is a slight exaggeration: of those who see themselves as AfD sympathizers, "only" around a quarter are right-wing extremists - but they do vote for a party.

The rest of the AfD-critical public is jittery and helpless. Markus Lanz recently embodied this jittery helplessness in his show: The presenter received AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla, among others, with his weapons drawn. Lanz was in trouble right from the start, like anyone who invites the AfD onto the podium. But expose them quickly, otherwise you give the right-wing extremists a stage! Lanz obviously had an opening in mind, he wanted to get Chrupalla to make negative comments about Alice Weidel right at the start. Divide and rule! It didn't go well.

Whether he, Chrupalla, wasn't jealous of Weidel. Because of the "Stern" title the other day. Who would be the top candidate, him or Weidel. How he intended to decide that. And, once again, about Weidel: he, Lanz, had heard from within the party that Chrupalla and Weidel hated each other. Lanz doesn't ask whether this is true, however, but instead reclassifies the Weidel hatred as a fact: whether the hatred doesn't get in the way of working together. And, again briefly the "Stern" cover, Chrupalla works so much, but then Weidel gets the cover, whether that isn't unfair. And so on.

Chrupalla dominates Lanz

Chrupalla giggles several times in the bucket seat, disputes and smugly points out the Green Party leader's lack of university and professional qualifications. Now Lanz giggles and mumbles because he is clearly not in the mood to change tracks. On December 7, Chrupalla let Markus Lanz, the most cunning talk show soft-boiler in the republic, drip-dry. Hm.

And that's how it often works, unfortunately. The AfD doesn't excel at anything, but successfully embodies what it wants to be: an alternative to everything, all the big crap. The whole unbearable present. The global mess, the war, the German decline, the loss of control, the open borders, the gendering, the transsexuals, the climate madness - in short, everything that those up there have thought up in their eggheads.

This anti-intellectualism was already an important driving force behind the movement of the original Nazis. It is being given a lot of nourishment these days: through an ideologically motivated phase-out of nuclear power, through a debate on migration, the full extent of which came to light after October 7. Through climate change, which you can't believe if you simply don't have anything to do with science.

Is the Merz-CDU "dangerous"?

Anti-intellectualism is also fueled by an SPD that, like Saskia Esken at the moment, is working its way through the CDU. The CDU is "highly dangerous", said Esken, precisely because Merz speaks of "little pashas" and "social tourism". There is a lot to criticize about Merz - but if the CDU is "dangerous", what adjective does Esken have left for the AfD? And how many workers and low-income earners will think to themselves in the face of this criticism, which seems like language policing: you're not allowed to say anything in Germany anymore?

Anyone who wants to put the AfD in their place with their language is playing on the wrong field. Lanz tried in vain by holding up somehow unsuccessful quotes from other AfD politicians. Historian Michael Wolffsohn, on the other hand, like many others, wanted to highlight Chrupalla's professional incompetence by dissecting his Middle East tweet. The professor came across - as he himself admitted - as "pretentious".

But if journalists and professors can't reach workers, perhaps the bosses can: for them, the AfD is a deterrent to skilled workers and therefore a location risk. Who would want to attract a black or Asian-looking person to Thuringia when Höcke could soon be governing there, a prime minister who has publicly said: "Look each other in the face, talk to each other, listen to each other, notice each other, meet each other. Believe me: when the going gets tough, we will recognize each other." By ... Face?

Bosses against the AfD

Jenoptik boss Stefan Traeger has nevertheless taken a risk and launched a campaign for tolerance and diversity in Saxony and Thuringia ("Stay open"). Daring is the right word if you look at the public reactions in the comment columns. Evonik CEO Christian Kullmann also takes a swipe at the party: the AfD endangers "democracy, the rule of law, freedom of opinion and human rights". It is damaging "our economy, our society, our future".

It is long overdue for companies to take a stand and I hope that others will follow suit. However, the basic problem remains: this resistance to the far right also comes from the top. This also applies to a possible ban procedure, for which other celebrities as well as the "Ärzte" musician Bela B are campaigning. It is not only tricky, difficult and has poor prospects of success - it is also an elitist, primarily legal process.

The lure of the extreme right cannot be banned. There's no hiding from it: it's not "those up there" who decide whether the AfD wins, but "those down there", which in this case is all of us. We Germans must prove whether we learned our lesson in 1945. How we behave in the coming months, whether, how and when we argue, at work or at the kitchen table, will once again decide the future of Germany.

A right-wing extremist might put it like this: The AfD is a test of the people.