The Alternative for Germany party’s success in the most recent German state elections
By: Matthew Walsh
On September 1, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won a state election in the eastern state of Thuringia, Germany, marking the first state-level victory for a far-right party since the Nazis during the Second World War. The AfD party won just over 32% of the vote to secure a plurality of seats in the Thuringia state parliament and finished in second place in Saxony with 30.6% of the vote. Recent polls have indicated that if federal elections were to take place now across the nation, the AfD would come in second. The AfD’s ascendence has sent a wave of panic through left-wing German groups, with politicians including the current chancellor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), raising concerns about the AfD’s divisive and hateful nature and calling on the Federal Constitutional Court to ban the party. Basing its platform on nationalist policies, the AfD has adopted anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, pro-national security, and anti-European Union (EU) viewpoints, as well as promoting what the party sees as traditional familial values and German culture. With the current controversies surrounding the party and its policies, many have been left to wonder where the support for the extremist group has grown from, and how it has been able to increase so rapidly. In short, the AfD’s staggering and startling success has been long in the making. The party’s rise lies in an increasingly widespread national backlash towards recent waves of immigration, as well as the party’s popular appeal with a new generation of German youth.
With the sizable spikes in German immigration over the past decade, the AfD’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has caught the attention of and gained significant support from Germans in economically impoverished regions. In 2015, as part of her open-door policy, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel suspended the Dublin Regulation. By suspending this EU rule that restricts migrants from claiming asylum in the first EU state they arrive in, Merkel granted asylum to more than one million Syrian refugees. Despite strong backing from the left, less prosperous communities in eastern Germany were furious about Merkel’s decision. With 11% less disposable income than their counterparts in Western Germany, Germans in the East have struggled economically since the fall of the Soviet Union. With over 1.1 million Ukrainian refugees and 5.2 million E.U. citizens currently residing in Germany as of September 2024, the AfD has capitalized on public fears regarding job insecurity and has scapegoated immigrants to boost the party’s following. One example of this behavior came when the AfD took advantage of an incident occurring days before the state elections. A 26-year-old Syrian immigrant who was supposed to be deported from the country last year made headlines after fatally stabbing three German citizens and hospitalizing eight others in Solingen during the city’s 650th anniversary. Shortly after the incident took place, Bjön Höck, the AFD’s top candidate in Thüringia, pounced on the opportunity to share his thoughts on X: “Germans, Thuringians, do you really want to get used to these conditions? Free yourselves; finally put an end to the wrong path of forced multiculturalization!” This tragic event served as a flashpoint for anti-Muslim and anti-immigration rhetoric and likely drove up the AfD’s support.
Syrian man responsible for the stabbings of 3 Germans being transported by the German Police
In addition to attracting followers due to widespread concern over immigration, the AfD has gained appeal with the German youth. One way the AfD has grown its youth following has been through social media platforms such as TikTok. Leading figures in the party, such as parliament member Maximilian Krah, have targeted the German youth by framing the AfD as a party not only for national pride but also for bettering the future generations of Germany. For example, one of Krah’s most popular TikTok videos—with a total of 1.6 million views and over 90 thousand likes—ties youth degeneracy to voting for the left: “Don’t watch porn, don’t vote green, go outside into the fresh air.” Krah also tells young voters that “real men stand on the far right,” and that “real men are patriots.” Additional videos highlight messages attacking German support for the war in Ukraine, accompanied by claims that Germany is wasting money and will eventually get pulled directly into the war. Maximilian Krah and the AfD have used TikTok and other media platforms to spread their message to the German youth, and the effort is paying off. For example, in Brandenburg’s state election, the AfD party came in second overall with 29.2% of the vote; furthermore, the party won the most youth votes, securing 32% of voters from the ages of 16-25. Similarly, in the 2024 European Union elections, 16% of youth voters voted for the AfD party, tripling their percentage of support from 2019. With the German youth rapidly locking arms in support of the AfD, it doesn’t look like the party will slow down anytime soon, and will instead only sustain its political growth in the future.
All in all, while the recent success of the far-right party might come as a shock to some, the AfD’s growth hasn’t occurred overnight. Instead, the AfD has taken advantage of the political discontent among wide swaths of the German population over issues like immigration and regional economic disparities, which many feel the current government is not effectively addressing. By positioning itself as a pseudo-populist group against the status quo and using social media to appear to youths as a future-focused and nationalistic solution to current problems, the AfD has been able to amass a sizable following and threaten the current German political establishment.
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