Eighty years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, a party accused of harboring extremists and minimizing the crimes of the Holocaust has won a stunning electoral victory. For Jews in Germany, Israel and across Europe, the question is no longer whether the far right is returning. It is how close it can get to power.

The ghosts of Germany’s past are not supposed to be part of its political future.

Yet the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has just delivered one of the most consequential electoral shocks in postwar German politics. In Saxony-Anhalt, the party won 43.8% of the vote—more than twice its result in the state’s 2021 election—leaving Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union far behind.

No party classified as far right has won a state election in Germany with such a margin since 1945.

For Jewish communities, the symbolism is impossible to ignore. Germany rebuilt its democratic identity after the Holocaust around a solemn commitment: Never again would antisemitism, racial nationalism and political extremism be allowed to consume the state.

The AfD’s ascent is testing that commitment.

The Firewall Is Under Pressure

Germany’s postwar political system has operated with an unusually rigid barrier against extremist parties. Mainstream political organizations have traditionally refused to form governing coalitions with the AfD.

That barrier, often described as the Brandmauer, or firewall, was intended to ensure that electoral success could not automatically translate into political legitimacy.

Saxony-Anhalt has now exposed how vulnerable that system has become.

The AfD fell only three seats short of a governing majority. Any defections from the CDU—or cooperation from another party—could theoretically give it a path into government.

Even if that does not happen, the result has already altered the political landscape.

The prospect of AfD politicians controlling institutions such as the police, judiciary, education system or domestic intelligence apparatus would represent a profound change in Germany’s postwar political culture.

For Jewish Germans, there is another concern: the party’s record on Holocaust remembrance and antisemitism.

Some senior AfD figures have made statements minimizing Nazi crimes or questioning the central place of Holocaust remembrance in German national life. Other members have had associations with extremist movements.

Germany’s Jewish population has every reason to watch closely.

Merz Has a Political Problem

The result is also a severe blow to Merz.

When he led the CDU into battle against the AfD, Merz promised to contain the party’s growth. Instead, the AfD is now leading national polling by roughly eight percentage points, according to the figures cited in the original analysis.

AfD leaders are........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)