Germany‘s new Right Movement Entering politics only three years ago, the far right AfD-party celebrates it‘s magnificent rise to power. In regional elections more then 20 Percent share their radical nationalist positions. Now, the party leaders are on watch for the upcoming general votes next year.
AfD-leader Frauke Petry in 2015. Photo: own work.
When Bernd Lucke founded the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany – AfD) back in 2013, his party seemed more like a society of stale boring old men then the new big player‘s birth on Germany‘s political stage. It‘s early apologists have seen themselves as a „party of experts“. Mostly professors of economics, they substantiated their Euro- and EU-skepticism with their academical reputation. In it‘s first year, the AfD seemed evolving more to a neo-conservative and neo-liberal successor of the FDP then to the dangerously growing monster far right from Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (Christian Democrat Union - CDU) today. But in the summer of 2015 the rapidly growing party‘s right fraction pushed Lucke out of office. Together with a few loyals he left the AfD and founded a new party – ALFA – but almost disappeared from the media.
The party leaders around the new woman in charge, Frauke Petry, immediately started to reconstruct the organization to a multi-ideological polycracy. Petry‘s co-chairman Frank Meuthen represents the neo-liberal wing in Southern Germany, while Alexander Gauland, who was a political professional in the pre-Merkel CDU for decades, stands for the influent nationalist block and acts as the AfD‘s éminence grise. He also mentors Björn Höcke‘s, party leader in the state of Thuringia, fascist like alliance with the radical “Thügida”-movement, which just celebrated Adolf Hitler‘s birthday on the 20th of April with a highly controversial demonstration in the city of Jena. Further board members are Beatrix von Storch, representative ultra-reactionary catholic tendencies, and Albrecht Glaser, with his 73 years a conservative dinosaur. Petry‘s job is to balance the different fractions, which at the moment are tied together by their common success.
While the western state associations appear to prefer traditionalist and neo-liberal positions, they also make profit with the radical nationalist phrases heard out of eastern party structures. In the elections in the former-GDR regions Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania 20 Percent of the people voted for the nationalist, xenophobic anti-muslim slogans of the AfD. The votes in this small federal states were recognized to be a test run for the federal general elections next year. Not to forget, the AfD claimed also 11 seats in the state parliament of Brandenburg, 8 in Thuringia, 14 in Saxony, but also one seat in the western state of Bremen, 7 seats in Hamburg and even 14 and 23 in the important south-western states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg. First time after 1945 openly ultra-nationalist forces have made their way back to massive influence on German politics.
But the AfD is not the only sign of a new acceptance of right winged positions between Germans. The 2014 founded “PEGIDA”-movement also made it‘s way to international media with their xenophobic, anti-muslim and racist demonstrations every week – nearly one thousand attacks on refugees and activists, from that over 200 arson attacks on refugee quarters with over 250 injured in total speak their own language. On the streets beside the parliaments Germany experiences its most serious wave of radical right terror for years. While studies in fact project a 20 percentage racist and authoritarian potential, many people seem to welcome the AfD‘s rise not sharing it‘s racism and xenophobia directly, even if they are supporting them threw the backdoor this way. As SPIEGEL ONLINE reports, only 9 Percent of the Germans believe that the AfD has the right answers on the so called refugee crisis. But 37 Percent celebrate it’s success as a „slap round the faces of the established parties“. Many see Angela Merkel‘s refugee policy as unorganized and misguiding, even in the lines of her own double-party CDU/CSU. They also feel betrayed by the Social Democrats, who support the Chancellor’s and especially her economy friendly and anti-social course in and outside the Federal Republic. SPD-chairman and minister of economy Sigmar Gabriel became commonly known as the „TTIP-minister“. The Greens aim to be corrupted by their involvement in the Schröder-government, which was accompanied by the first participations of the post-WW2 German military in international conflicts during the wars in former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. It was also accompanied by heavy incisions in the public services, which led to the widest social protests of the late 90‘s and early 2000‘s. Involved in a few state governments the last years, including Berlin, and providing the actual Prime Minister in Thuringia, even the leftist party DIE LINKE is regarded as a part of the establishment and lost a lot of it‘s function in public protest. In spite of it‘s neo-liberal manifesto the AfD presents itself as the „ordinary man‘s and woman‘s“ voice. As populists all over the capitalist world they fulfill the task to combine nationalism and racism with social protest while they in fact stand for a radical neo-liberal and anti-social course. They not only fill in the gaps left by the other parties and mobilize a part of the forgotten lower, but also serve and encourage the fear of decline in the middle class. They secure their popularity by stoking prejudices and hate against refugees, foreigners, Roma and also Jews; an unique feature only the AfD provides. It defines itself as the only fundamental opposition against leftists, greens and Angela Merkel at the same time; being, as the leader of the (western) lower-saxonian party organization Armin-Paul Hampel told the day after the votes in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania last week, the „natural successor“ of the pre-Merkel Christian Democrat Union.
In conclusion, the new Right Movement in Germany as in other western countries is not explainable just by the growing racism following the refugee task, but also by the weakness of the other parties, especially on the left wing, which fail to solve the problems of the lower and the fears of the middle class. The combination of far right positions with an attitude of protest against the so called establishment grants a wide basis for the AfD’s neo-liberal and authoritarian demands. While fighting nationalism and racism, the far-right danger can be only overcome by the re-engagement in social and class struggles.