Germany

AfD voters are rebelling against a failing economy

For decades, Germany was a beacon of centrist political stability. During her 16-year leadership, Angela Merkel led a succession of grand coalitions which neutralised the political extremes, and piloted her country through an era of steady economic growth.

Today, that political settlement has dissolved. Germany’s reliance on Russian gas has devastated its industrial economy, while the surface tranquillity of the Merkel era is a distant memory. Alternative für Deutschland, a far-Right populist party, has been the beneficiary of this chaos, surging in the polls to become the second-most popular party in Germany.

The head of one of Germany’s major Roman Catholic associations has called for banning members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) from lay positions within the Roman Catholic Church, arguing their conservative values are in contradiction to the faith.

Irme Stetter-Karp, President of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), stated that she did not believe that members of the AfD and their values were compatible with Christianity, and called their recent surge in the polls “dangerous.”

The far-right party is now the country’s second most popular. There have been rumours it might be banned, but its politicians say Berlin just won’t listen to them on migration and eco issues

Over beer and schnitzels, members of the local branch of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party gathered one evening last week in the back room of a rustic inn in Waltershausen, on the edge of the Thuringian forest.

As they discussed their politics, considered radically right-wing by many in Germany, the walls behind were decorated with oil paintings of rural scenes and glass cases containing the dolls for which the picturesque little town was once famous.

With support for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party at an all-time high, calls to ban the party outright are growing louder among increasingly unpopular left-globalist politicians, along with their lackeys in Germany’s mainstream liberal press.

Speaking last week at the 75th anniversary of the Herrenchiemsee Convention—the first of which, in 1948, resulted in the initial draft of Germany’s post-war constitution—Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who occupies the largely ceremonial role as President of the Federal Republic, appeared to call for the AfD to be banned, saying: “We all have it in our hands to put those who despise our democracy in their place.” 

Despite efforts to ban the party, support is surging

I was sitting in a beer garden in Fürstenwalde, southeast of Berlin, when the disturbing news alert about the deaths of six migrants in the Channel pinged up on my phone. I told my German friends about it and the small boats crisis in Britain, but didn’t get very far before one of them interrupted me: “You call that a crisis? It’s much worse here and our government doesn’t even pretend it cares!”

The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt has launched an investigation into an incident that saw members of the left-globalist Antifa issue veiled incitements to violence against Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) candidates standing for the upcoming Hessian state elections after publishing their private home addresses.

The action, which gave rise to widespread condemnation, also prompted—likely for reasons having to do with optics—sharp disapproval from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, headed by Nancy Faeser, who previously wrote for an Antifa magazine managed by an organization with links to far-left extremism.