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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
James Hawes

Everyone is terrified of a far-right return in Germany. Here’s why it won’t happen

Supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party wave German flags, in Erfurt.
Supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party wave German flags, in Erfurt. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The media are alive with crumbling firewalls (Brandmauer) in Germany. State elections in Thuringia have delivered the first win for the extreme right since 1945 in the region where the Nazis first entered regional power in 1929, and on the date Adolf Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.

“The East will do it!” The Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) campaign mixed the usual right-populist themes with the suggestion that the East is where the real Germany resists the liberal horrors of multiculturalism and windpower.

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