The anti-fascist consensus about our Nazi past is fundamental to German democracy. But that, shockingly, is being shattered
As shock at the scale of the far right’s resounding state-election victory in Germany reverberated on Sunday, not everybody was unhappy.
Seconds after the first exit polls from Saxony-Anhalt were revealed, Donald Trump posted the results on his Truth Social platform, seemingly delighted by the devastation of the centrist-conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the surge of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
It was indeed a humiliation for the CDU chancellor, Friedrich Merz, whose party lost more than half of its seats in the state parliament, while the AfD increased its count from 23 to 39.
This was the exact opposite of what Merz promised to deliver when campaigning for office. With good government under his guidance, he insisted, he would easily cut the AfD in half. The AfD’s co-leaders did not miss the opportunity to point out the historic upset in their victory speeches, with Alice Weidel even boasting the CDU would “never win an election again”.
