The German Far Right Is Poised for a Breakthrough

I magine that it’s October 2026, and one of Germany’s 16 federal states has come under the control of a far-right government for the first time since the Nazi era.

With an absolute majority in the state Parliament and one of its own installed as state premier, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, quickly begins implementing its agenda.

The interior minister announces an emergency remigration program: abolishing asylum, revoking the residence permit of any foreigner convicted of a crime, pledging to review all naturalization decisions made during this century, and incarcerating those designated for deportation.

The government stops classifying Ukrainians as war refugees and ends their social benefits.

European Union flags disappear from public buildings.

The mainstream press is shunned in favor of influencers aligned with the party’s ideology.

The government authorizes vigilante groups to act as an auxiliary police force in regions with high crime rates.

This hasn’t happened, but it’s not merely hypothetical either.

The AfD is projected to win an election next month in Saxony-Anhalt, a central German state of some 2 million people.

An anti-racism NGO in Berlin, the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, created this scenario based on the far-right party’s own election manifesto and the statements of its representatives.

For decades, right-wing politics have carried particular weight in Germany, where atonement for the Holocaust includes mandatory education about the rise of National Socialism.

The far right was long relegated to the fringes, its most ardent members easily identified as skinheads decked out in leather.

But the AfD, founded in 2013 as a mild euroskeptic party led mostly by conservative economists opposed to eurozone bailouts, is now Germany’s most important right-wing force since the Nazis.

At the national level, the AfD is the most popular party, supported by more than a quarter of voters in recent polls.