AfD's seismic triumph isn't due to Merz being on borrowed time | Jörg Lau

Shock at the far right’s Saxony-Anhalt win rippled Sunday, yet not all were unhappy. After exit polls, Donald Trump posted results on Truth Social, delighted by the CDU collapse and AfD surge.

The result humiliated Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz, whose party lost over half its seats while AfD rose from 23 to 39, breaking his pledge to halve the far right. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel declared the CDU would “never win an election again.”

Beyond a single state, this is a political earthquake with consequences far beyond central Germany. Merz’s coalition and chancellorship future is uncertain. Though the losses aren’t solely his fault—his unpopularity saw his party avoid posters and bar public access to his Magdeburg visit—his standing within his ranks is damaged.

Two elections on 20 September in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania loom. On current trajectories, the CDU faces further debacles. Merz’s leadership is now a liability, to be contested soon; only the lack of a convincing alternative and constitutional hurdles protect him.

He embodies a wider crisis of confidence in Germany’s leadership, but isn’t its sole cause. Germany enters a period of political upheaval where postwar republic core values are disputed.

Most shocking, the anti-fascist “never again” consensus—decades in the making through Holocaust and Wehrmacht debates—is under attack. The AfD targets the consensus that confronting the Nazi past is democratic fundamentalism, calling the culture of remembrance an “identity disorder” holding Germany back. A central tenet is “healing” by relativising guilt and focusing on German greatness.

That is why 93-year-old Holocaust survivor and former Central Council of Jews chair Charlotte Knobloch expressed “horror.” She said she “struggled, on days like these, to recognise my homeland,” adding: “In my worst nightmares, I could not have imagined rightwing extremists win elections again in this manner.” She is right. The Saxony-Anhalt AfD chapter is domestic-intelligence-confirmed among the most radical nationally, with hardcore former neo-Nazis in influential positions.

AfD grows more radical approaching power, unlike other European right-wing populists. Magdeburg’s leadership employs former members of banned neo-Nazi groups. These individuals may soon control police, the domestic spy service, judiciary and education. The German taboo on hard-right extremists in executive office is crumbling.

AfD’s “Altparteien” slogans carry a distinctly Weimar vibe, echoing century-old propaganda against the “system.” It’s no coincidence books on the Weimar end are bestsellers.

The AfD is not a normal party; it’s a (counter)revolutionary movement seeking systemic change. Its core idea: a German ethnostate with as few foreigners as possible. The rallying cry “remigration” targets not just “illegals” but all immigrants and their descendants with unwanted foreign backgrounds.

Leadership coined “Melonisierung” (Meloni-isation) to describe what they avoid. Giorgia Meloni moved mainstream—backing Ukraine, the eurozone, NATO and EU free movement. The AfD pledges to leave the EU and eurozone, end Schengen, is fiercely pro-Russian, and wants to end Ukraine support, even sending refugees back. Fear of Russia escalation played a big election role. Recent hybrid attacks on Leipzig airport and other infrastructure may have tipped scales: Merz pointed at Russia, vowing perpetrators would “pay”—framed by AfD as a “peace policy,” an election win for Vladimir Putin.

Without an absolute majority, AfD may lean on the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which split from hard-left Die Linke. BSW represents a new leftist nationalism fiercely anti-immigrant and pro-Russian—and thus compatible with AfD. Yet forming a government in Magdeburg won’t be plain sailing, and AfD reaching Berlin is a long way off.

A glimmer of light: civil society mobilises now that initial shock has worn off. Big demonstrations in major cities are expected. A silent anti-fascist majority is organising. But breaking the dark spell this victory has cast over Germany’s landscape will be hard.

One thing is certain: the coming weeks will challenge political imagination, not just for Germans.