German democracy finally wakes up to the far-right

Since early in 2024, the German far-right and its political spearhead, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), have been put on the back foot by an unexpected – and massive – grassroots movement. Since mid-January, millions of Germans have taken to the streets each weekend to peacefully denounce the AfD's xenophobic rhetoric and anti-democratic agenda. The movement is still going strong, albeit at a slower pace.

The trigger for this blow-up was the story of the notorious "Potsdam Meeting". Revealed on 10 January by the investigative platform Correctiv, this secret meeting, which took place near Berlin in November 2023, brought together people who claimed not to know each other. They included members of the conservative CDU party, AfD parliamentarians and leaders, a scion of the Von Bismarck family, a few wealthy individuals, as well as neo-Nazis and identitarian activists. The meeting’s keynote speaker was Martin Sellner, leader of Austria’s identitarian movement. He presented details of a "remigration" plan involving the mass expulsion of two million foreigners from Germany to North Africa. The deportation of "badly assimilated" German citizens was also envisaged.  

"The fantasy of 'remigration' has been around for some time", points out Lorenz Blumenthaler, researcher and spokesman for the Antonio Amadeu Foundation (AAS), a German NGO focusing on extremism and racism. "It's well known among those who study the far right, but until now it hadn't attracted much attention. So we were surprised by the strength of the public’s reaction." Revelations about high-level political intrigue seem to have caused shock, as did the conspiratorial feel of a real-life meeting where such concrete – and unconstitutional – plans were laid out.

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"I've known for a long time that some of the AfD's leaders say racist things tinged with Nazi references", observed Wiebke Brenner, a local demonstrator we met in Berlin on 3 February. "But to suddenly learn that they are meeting people with substantial financial resources to talk about plans for the mass expulsion of foreigners! It's frightening. That was the last straw."

By noisily countering the AfD's inflammatory allegation that Germany is on the brink of economic ruin and cultural disintegration, the protests seem to have checked the AfD's rise. In all national polls of voting intentions from February onwards, the party has stalled, falling from its peak of 24% to a range of 16%-19%. In the AfD’s eastern heartland states, such as Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, the decline is also visible – although the AfD still hovers around 30% there.

"The first lesson is that it was possible to mobilise a lot of people in a short space of time",  says Mr Blumenthaler. "These were the biggest demonstrations since the climate protests. And the mobilisation was broad, attracting many older people who had never previously taken to the streets to protest against the far right. Finally, the rallies took place everywhere, including in small towns in the east where the far right is strong and where it takes courage to stand up to it."

The role of the climate movement Friday for Future, the main organiser, and the NGO Campact, was central. It was thanks to their mastery of social media, their national connections and their ability to liaise quickly with local actors that the demonstrations grew to such size. "They also showed activists that years of work on the ground were not a wasted effort – and non-activists just how effective such commitment can be", adds Pit Terjung, one of the spokespersons. From the Antonio Amadeu Foundation to "Grandmothers Against the Extreme Right", all the groups talk of  a growing enthusiasm for activism.

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‘To move beyond simple protests, we need a shared narrative that mobilises people. That is not there’ – Lorenz Blumenthaler, Antonio Amadeu Foundation

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"The movement has forged alliances and activated a number of democratic mechanisms", adds Lorenz Blumenthaler. For instance, German employers, who generally avoid taking sides, published a joint appeal with the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) to oppose the idea of remigration. The churches have taken a clear stance against the AfD. As for the media, it has given more attention to the workings and goals of the far-right nebula.

The AfD's ascendancy on social networks, particularly Tik Tok, has come in for scrutiny. A particular spotlight has been cast on Thuringia's AfD branch, which looks set to come out on top in September's regional elections in that state. It has thus transpired that the party has plans to harness constitutional and political levers to turn Thuringia into a far-right laboratory.

Three months on, the protests have dropped dramatically in number and frequency. From several hundred thousand demonstrators per weekend, there are now just a few tens of thousands. Lorenz Blumenthaler says this is unsurprising: "To move beyond simple protests, we need a shared narrative that mobilises people. That is not there. And although the traditional political parties have all welcomed and supported the movement, they did not initiate it and have not contributed much."

Faced with European Parliament elections and then regional elections in three eastern Länder, the social-democrat SPD and above all the conservatives CDU are struggling to imagine any future alliance against the far right. They are also finding it hard to adopt clear positions so as to draw red lines while not rejecting the far right's protest voters.

At the very least, the demonstrations have rekindled the debate over the surveillance of a party whose branches in several German regions have been classified as extremist by the intelligence services. The perspective now looms larger of a procedure to ban the party. The German constitution provides for this if there are "real indications" that a party intends to attack and "eliminate the liberal and democratic constitutional order".

With the support of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung European Union