The AfD's Saxony-Anhalt Victory Signals a Seismic Rupture of Germany's Anti-Fascist Postwar Consensus
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joerg-lau. "Friedrich Merz is now on borrowed time. But that’s not why the AfD’s triumph is seismic | Jörg Lau | The Guardian." September 8, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that Germany's far-right AfD party just won a huge election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, and while this is bad news for the current chancellor, the truly alarming part is that the AfD is attacking Germany's decades-long commitment to remembering and atoning for the Holocaust. Unlike other European far-right parties that moderate once they gain power, the AfD is getting more extreme, with former neo-Nazis poised to control police and courts, and its ultimate goal is a Germany with as few immigrants as possible while cozying up to Putin.
Conclusion
The AfD's landslide victory in Saxony-Anhalt is historically seismic not primarily because it threatens Merz's chancellorship, but because it represents a fundamental rupture of Germany's postwar anti-fascist 'never again' consensus, which is foundational to German democracy itself.
Premises
- The AfD explicitly attacks Germany's culture of remembrance regarding the Holocaust and Nazi past, calling it an 'identity disorder' that should be replaced by pride in German greatness.
- The AfD, unlike other European far-right parties (e.g., Meloni's party in Italy), is becoming more radical rather than more moderate as it approaches actual power, with former neo-Nazis holding influential positions in its Saxony-Anhalt leadership.
- These radicalized AfD figures may soon control key state institutions including police, domestic intelligence, judiciary, and education, breaking a longstanding taboo against far-right extremists in executive office.
- The AfD's rhetoric against mainstream parties ('Altparteien') and the broader political 'system' echoes Weimar-era anti-democratic propaganda, suggesting the party functions as a counter-revolutionary movement rather than a normal political party with ordinary policy goals.
- The AfD's core ideology centers on creating a German ethnostate through 'remigration,' targeting not just illegal immigrants but all people with foreign backgrounds, revealing ambitions beyond conventional migration policy even as asylum numbers are already falling sharply.
- The AfD's foreign policy positions (leaving the EU/eurozone/Schengen, pro-Russian stance, abandoning Ukraine, reopening Nord Stream) align with and benefit Putin's interests, and hybrid attacks blamed on Russia were successfully weaponized by the AfD as anti-establishment campaign fodder.
- A prominent Holocaust survivor and former head of Germany's Central Council of Jews expressed genuine horror and disorientation at the results, testifying to the unprecedented nature of this shift in collective memory culture.
Assumptions
- The anti-fascist 'never again' consensus has been the actual bedrock of German democratic legitimacy since WWII, not merely one political value among many.
- Electoral success by a party with these characteristics will translate into actual institutional and cultural change (i.e., that AfD officials gaining power will meaningfully alter memory culture and state institutions).
- The AfD's stated radical positions (ethnostate, remigration, leaving the EU) represent genuine intentions rather than campaign rhetoric that might moderate once in power.
- The comparison to Meloni's trajectory is a valid predictive framework, and the AfD's self-differentiation from 'Melonisierung' is a reliable indicator of its future behavior rather than strategic positioning.
- Domestic intelligence assessments characterizing the Saxony-Anhalt AfD chapter as highly radical are accurate and unbiased.
- The Weimar analogy is analytically appropriate rather than rhetorically inflammatory.