By Carolyn Nguyen
Correspondent
Alternative for Germany, known domestically as Alternative für Deutschland, won first place with 43.8% of the vote in Saxony Anhalt’s parliamentary election, earning 43.8% of seats in the state’s parliament, nearly double of the 2021 state election on Sept. 6, according to Prolit Pro.
Founded in 2013 as an anti-Eurozone party, the AfD initially focused on opposing Germany’s handouts to European countries struggling with the 2009-2018 debt crisis. According to The Independent, the party first identified itself as “a party of professors” and alienated itself from extremist policies; however, influence from new leadership and festering cultural issues snowballed into nationalist sentiments that led German domestic intelligence to brand the party as “far-right extremists.”
Over time, the AfD’s mission became that of realizing a mass national German identity.
As part of this vision, the party aligns itself with anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ, and pro-life groups as a way to protect German family values, according to Tablet.
The AfD has also been accused of promoting a nationalist revisionism of the country’s past, according to the Associated Press. Saxony Anhalt’s AfD branch wants schools to focus less on Germany’s Nazi past and more on German history before World War I and World War II to promote national pride rather than guilt.
Jens-Christian Wagner, a historian and the head of the Buchenwald Memorial, criticized, “The AfD is a nationalist party, and nationalists want to be proud of their history, and anyone who wants to be very proud of German history must of course minimize, play down, or even deny the shame of the Nazi crimes in order to be able to tell the story of national greatness.”
Additional education reforms call for segregated classes that separated refugee and disabled children from other kids. The AfD also wants to defund state-funded institutions and artists who promote “anti-German art,” which region representative Hans-Thomas Tillschneider explained to CNN as “German art that doesn’t want to be German.”
“The AfD is attacking the Bauhaus, using the very same words the Nazis used 100 years ago,” Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer told The Associated Press.
However, the AfD’s "re-immigration" policy sits in the hot seat of this election cycle: Co-Leader Alice Weidel argued, “[Chancellor Merz] declared that the migration crisis has ended. Yet every year a six figure number of migrants enters the country through the asylum back door and additional major cities through family reunification, most of them from Muslim tribal cultures,” according to Daily Motion.
The AfD aims to mass deport refugees and migrants, and, in the long term, abolish Germany’s right to asylum.
In response to Weidel, Chancellor Freidrich Merz, a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, condemned, “Remigration… is nothing else than ethnic cleansing of the skilled trades according to skin color and origins.”
According to DW News, Merz’s claim will be difficult to prove without evidence that the AfD’s mass deportations would violate international law. The United Nations’ defines “ethnic cleansing" as “rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force or intimidation”; however, the AfD insists that its immigration policies only apply to people who have no legal right to reside in Germany.
Merz also accused the AfD of promoting the Russian agenda in German politics.
While the AfD is divided on the war itself, it seeks to revoke asylum status for Ukrainians, arguing that as long as fighting remains confined to eastern Ukraine, Ukrainians should flee to Western Ukraine instead of straining resources in Germany. Furthermore, the AfD wants to end all sanctions against Russia and reinstate oil imports, which will make gas cheaper for citizens, according to Independent News.
On a similar note, the party wants Germany to halt green energy reform and energy regulations in favor of coal and nuclear energy to revitalize Germany’s economy.
Major success in Saxony has given the AfD hope for upcoming state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern this year, as well as control of the Bundestag in future federal elections, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Merz is now grappling with AfD’s growing pressure against Germany’s teetering political centre- an issue the Germany public gives him partial credit for.
Upon taking office in May 2025, Merz promised to revive the stagnant economy, initiate welfare reforms and increase pension finances, according to Time Magazine.
While Merz struggled with passing reforms through his coalition government– an unpopular partnership with the center-left Social Democratic Party– high domestic production costs, competition from Chinese companies, economic strain from the United States’ tariffs and depleting welfare caused by an aging population continue to bog down the economy, according to Independent News.
According to a DeutschlandTrend survey, 85% of Germans are unhappy with the coalition and only 24% have faith that Merz can turn the economy around.
While less than half of respondents believe that the coalition should endure until the 2029 federal election, AfD captivates eastern Germany with its policies, signalling a new tide in Germany’s post-World War II political climate.
