Germany’s AfD, once a conservative, economically liberal “professors’ party,” known for its doubts about German participation in the euro, has, over the years, evolved, particularly in the former East Germany, into a party that genuinely merits that much-abused label of “far right.” There are many reasons for its transformation, not least its opposition to the lax immigration policies pursued by Germany’s establishment including, above all, Angela Merkel’s reckless and self-indulgent decision to throw open Germany’s doors in 2015. The AfD’s ascent is another part of Merkel’s legacy.
The recent murder of three of those attending a “Festival of Diversity,” an event held in Solingen, a city in Germany’s west, to celebrate its 650th anniversary, has shocked the country. The attack almost certainly sent additional votes the AfD’s way in Sunday’s elections in two states in Germany’s east. The alleged killer is a 26-year-old Syrian asylum-seeker. He has reportedly admitted his guilt.
NBC:
The German Federal Prosecutor’s office took over investigation Sunday and “issued an arrest warrant and ordered the execution of pre-trial detention,” according to a statement.
The prosecutor’s office said the man is accused of three counts of murder and eight counts of attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm, adding that he shares the ideology of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, which he joined before Friday.
“Due to his radical Islamist beliefs, he decided to kill as many people as possible, who he considered to be non-believers, at the Solingen city festival on August 23, 2024,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “There he stabbed festival visitors repeatedly and deliberately in the neck and upper body with a knife.”
And so (via the BBC):
Germany’s anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) is celebrating a “historic success”, with a big victory for the far-right party in the eastern state of Thuringia.
The AfD won almost a third of the vote, nine points ahead of the conservative CDU, and far in front of Germany’s three governing parties.
The result gives the far right its first win in a state parliament election since World War Two, although it has little hope of forming a government in Thuringia because other parties are unlikely to work with it.
The AfD came a close second in Sunday’s other big state election, in the more populous neighbouring state of Saxony…
36% of under-30s in Thuringia voted for the AfD, far more than any other party.
The AfD opposes Germany’s support for Ukraine, which has helped it politically.
Another major contributing factor to the AfD’s rise has been the perception by many in the east that they have been “left behind” since reunification, a perception inevitably sharpened by Germany’s growing economic woes.
It is unlikely to have been a coincidence that Volkswagen waited until after the vote before announcing that it was considering closing factories in Germany for the first time in its history.
The Financial Times:
Lower than expected demand for electric vehicles in Europe has hit the region’s carmakers, including VW, which is also struggling with a shrinking market share in China, its most profitable market…
Analysts have long urged Volkswagen to carry out the job cuts to make the cost savings work at a time when heavy investments are needed to make the transition to EVs.
Ah yes, the green new dole.
VW has an EV-manufacturing plant in Zwickau, Saxony. The company has already postponed plans to build its new Trinity line there.
VW is also having to contend with rising competition from what its CEO coyly referred to “new entrants” (the Chinese) coming into the market. Germany’s high energy costs will not have helped either (the CEO talked about the way “Germany as a business location is falling further behind in terms of competitiveness”). Those costs are, as I mentioned the other day, due to the cutting off of “cheap” Russian gas, Merkel’s decision to reintroduce Germany’s abandonment of nuclear power, and the country’s ill-considered rush into renewables, above all into wind. Opposition to wind turbines has been a vote-winner for the AfD.
In all the news about the AfD, it’s important (as I also mentioned the other day) not to lose sight of how the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (the BSW, which is more or less a one-woman band) did. In various areas, from Ukraine to immigration to green deindustrialization, its policies overlap to a considerable degree with those of the AfD, an example of the horseshoe theory in operation.
The BSW did well, coming third in Thuringia, with 15.8 percent of the vote, ahead of the “traditional” far-left Die Linke (13.1 percent) from whom Wagenknecht broke off in January. The establishment Left (the SPD) scored 6.1 percent, the Greens 3.2 percent. In Saxony the BSW took third place with 11.8 percent, well ahead of the Greens, Die Linke, and the SPD. The former East Germany is, politically, something of a law unto itself, but the warning signs from Thuringia and Saxony don’t just apply there.
Wagenknecht (a former — she says — admirer of Stalin) has said that, like the establishment parties, she will not work with the AfD. But will she work with the establishment parties, and will they work with her? And if they will, what will that say about them?
Interesting times ahead, which will be made more interesting still as Germany’s current government — a coalition between the SPD, the Greens, and the (sort of) economic liberals of the FDP — struggles to survive.