A former president of the German Bundestag has urged the country’s political leaders to seize on the momentum of recent nationwide demonstrations against far-right populism to build “an alliance of democrats”, comparing the outpouring of anger to the protests that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Wolfgang Thierse, a veteran social democrat considered by many to be a moral authority in contemporary Germany, said he was shocked by the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which has struggled to distance itself from revelations that party members attended a meeting at which plans for the mass deportation of foreigners were discussed.
But, he said, an uninterrupted wave of demonstrations against the party since the report broke last month was an expression of civil courage reminiscent of the protests that presaged the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
As Germany’s mainstream political leaders grapple with the AfD’s growing popularity, Thierse called on them to capitalise on the public revulsion prompted by the deportations report and “demonstrate their civil courage”.
“We need to protect and defend our democracy; we need to encourage people to vote. This is no time for shoulder-shrugging,” he said.
In a wide-ranging interview, Thierse, who was president of the parliament for seven years until 2005, reiterated his tentative support for the AfD to be banned, which is a step that many Germans deem to be anti-democratic and potentially counter-productive.
“We have to investigate the possibility of a ban,” he said, sitting on a sofa in his Berlin office beneath Andy Warhol’s portrait of Thierse’s political idol, Willy Brandt. “There is no political argument to say there should not be a ban and, after all, the party has already been deemed right-wing extremist in parts of Germany by the domestic intelligence. This threat should hang like a Damocles sword over the party.”
But, he cautioned, such a move could not “replace real political debate”. “And neither does it exonerate citizens from the important task of engaging in everyday debate with the AfD and its potential voters and supporters,” he added.
The discussion around the growth of AfD support, which has risen to more than 48% in some areas, has developed particular urgency not only because of January’s media revelations, but also because the party is on course to sweep the board at three regional elections this autumn.
This weekend, for the seventh in a row, protesters will gather in cities and smaller towns across the country to show their opposition to the party, which campaigns on blocking immigration, historical revisionism, and radical reform of education, media and the judiciary.
Thierse said he took heart from the fact that the demonstrations, in which he had participated, proved that “people are far from being resigned to the situation”.
“It has led to the so-called silent majority getting loud, and grasping [with] the fact that they have a responsibility to defend democracy, that it can’t just be left to the politicians, the legal system … it’s also our responsibility,” he said.
“They are going out and filling the space to show it’s theirs, and not the AfD’s. Like in 1989 when protesters declared ‘Wir sind das Volk’ – effectively: ‘We are the voice of the people’, not them – and we will not give up our streets and squares to you,” Thierse said.
But he said people’s desire – heightened by fear – for a smooth transition “at a time of turbulent upheaval” also reminded him of how eastern Germans had responded to the “quick and painless fix” promised to them by Chancellor Helmut Kohl after the collapse of communism.
“They believed in his promises that everything in a united Germany would soon be fixed and rosy, and voted for the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) in droves. He should have been honest with them, just as [the chancellor, Olaf] Scholz should now, saying: ‘It’s not going to be possible without pain, suffering and cost.’ Even if that’s not what people want to hear.”
Thierse, who hails from the east German state of Thuringia, said people’s disappointment when Kohl’s famous promise of “blossoming landscapes” failed to materialise for many – in terms of equal pay, prosperity, pensions and life chances – had led to substantial numbers of eastern German voters drifting away from the CDU and into the arms of the far-left Die Linke, and then the AfD.
There was a lesson in this for today’s voters and politicians, he said. Singling out the AfD and a new far-left party founded by Sahra Wagenknecht, Die Linke’s charismatic former co-leader, Thierse said voters needed to beware those who claim “they can work wonders to put it right”.
While the AfD was gaining support by offering simple solutions to complex issues and “manufacturing anger” as a vote-winner, he said, Scholz should embrace more “direct and clear communication” with the electorate, in particular to “disabuse them of the notion that the challenges we face right now – from Ukraine to the climate emergency – are easily solvable. They’re not.”
He criticised in particular Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative CDU, who he said was “dangerously playing the AfD at its own game”. Mainstream politicians needed to recognise that nothing less than democratic stability was at stake if they did not build “an alliance of democrats” and “unite to tackle issues which [are] causing people to support the far right out of fear and uncertainty”, he said.
Thierse, who is 80, was born in Wrocław, now Poland, in the middle of the second world war, and his historical references reach back even further. While he said it would be incorrect to compare present-day Germany to the Weimar era, which paved the way for the Nazis coming to power in 1933, Thierse said that was no reason for complacency.
He said: “Just knowing that in 1930 the [Nazi party] was on 15%, and three years later was in power, and to realise that the AfD is currently on 19% or 20%, and in east German states is on 30% or more, then you have an idea as to how quickly everything can happen.”
