Mainstream politicians express alarm while lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt welcomes congratulations from Elon Musk
Mainstream politicians around Europe have expressed alarm after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) swept to a historic state election victory in Germany, while nationalist figures cheered the result as a mandate for change.
While falling just short of an absolute majority, the AfD surged into first place in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on Sunday, exit polls showed, putting the far right within reach of power at the state level for the first time since the second world war.
While falling just short of an absolute majority, the AfD surged into first place in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on Sunday, exit polls showed, putting the far right within reach of power at the state level for the first time since the second world war.
The Nazis achieved a better result in a state election on only two occasions before Hitler’s coming to power in January 1933—in May 1932 in Oldenburg, with 48.4 percent, and June 1932 in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, with 49 percent. In Anhalt (part of what is now Saxony-Anhalt), the Nazis secured 40.7 percent in April 1932 and formed one of the first Nazi-led state governments. In the Reichstag election in November 1932, the last before Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, the Nazis received 33.1 percent. Since the end of the Third Reich, no far-right party has ever again achieved a comparably high election result.
This result does not mean that every AfD voter is a Nazi. The AfD is not a fascist mass party. It is a product of the shift to the right across the entire bourgeois political spectrum and owes its rise to the degeneration of the trade unions and the parties that once claimed to represent the interests of the workers. They have betrayed the workers so often and so thoroughly that the AfD has been able to capitalise on the outrage and frustration this has caused.