“Who’s afraid of AfD?” Germany’s Political Earthquake: The AfD and the Collapse of Consensus

Few political parties in Europe receive coverage as relentlessly hostile as Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

German and international press rarely portray the AfDas a conventional right-wing movement; instead, it is frequently characterised as an existential threat to democracy itself – for Germany and the entire continent. Terms such as “far-right”, “extremist”, “fascist” and even “Nazi-ish” dominate headlines, while media narratives oscillate between warnings of an imminent authoritarian resurgence and incredulity at the party’s continued electoral success. The party’s supporters are often depicted as either resentful pensioners clinging to the past or embittered youth radicalised by conspiracy theories and xenophobia.

Yet, despite—or perhaps because of—this near-universal condemnation, the AfD has become a force to be reckoned with in German politics. Recent polling places it consistently above 20 percent nationally, surpassing the Social Democrats (SPD) and trailing only the Christian Democrats (CDU). Particularly in eastern Germany, the AfD has transitioned from an insurgent movement to a dominant political player, only excluded from power because of a broad alliance of most of her competitors, the country’s self-styled “democratic” parties. Understanding the party’s trajectory requires tracing its evolution from a niche Eurosceptic movement to a nationalist-populist party that now threatens Germany’s entire postwar political order.

From Euro-Scepticism to Populism

The AfD was founded in 2013 by a group of economics professors and intellectuals disillusioned with what they saw as the European Union’s irresponsible and unlawful handling of the euro crisis. Their focus was narrow but pointed: opposing the European Central Bank’s bailouts of Southern European economies and calling for a return to the Maastricht rules or, even better, national monetary sovereignty. This academic, fiscally conservative brand of euroscepticism initially found favour among disaffected CDU voters, but the party struggled to gain broader traction. Its appeal was largely limited to free-market liberals and national-conservative intellectuals sceptical of EU overreach.

The true transformation of the AfD came in 2015, when Angela Merkel’s open-border migration policy led to over a million asylum seekers entering Germany. The AfD swiftly pivoted from an economic critique of the euro to a broader populist message centered on immigration, national identity, and cultural sovereignty. This shift was met with immediate success; the party surged in regional elections, attracting voters frustrated with the CDU’s increasingly centrist policies. However, this pivot also intensified internal divisions. The AfD’s liberal-conservative founding figures, such as Bernd Lucke and later Frauke Petry, found themselves sidelined by a more hardline faction that saw mass migration not as an isolated policy failure, but as a symptom of deeper systemic dysfunction in Germany’s political establishment.

A Divided Party and the Identity Question

As the AfD grew, it increasingly struggled with defining its position on Germany’s historical narrative. While the party was united in rejecting what it saw as excessive national self-flagellation, its response varied from mild revisionism to outright provocation. Figures like Björn Höcke, leader of the AfD’s powerful Thuringian branch, openly called for a “180-degree turn” in Germany’s approach to its past, implying that national pride should replace institutionalised guilt. This stance alarmed not only the political mainstream but also parts of the AfD itself, especially in western Germany, where more moderate factions sought to maintain credibility among conservative voters disillusioned with the CDU.

The divide between East and West remains a defining characteristic of the party. In the former GDR states, the AfD regularly polls as the strongest force, enjoying broad support in rural as well as urban areas. In contrast, its western branches remain weaker and more marginalised, struggling to compete against the CDU and Free Democrats (FDP). This geographic split mirrors ideological tensions within the party: the western AfD retains a more traditional, market-oriented conservatism, whereas the eastern AfD has embraced a radical nationalist-populist identity, often skirting the boundaries of acceptability in German political discourse (see also map of regional majorities during the 2024 European elections).

The AfD in Europe: An Outlier Among Outliers

On the European stage, the AfD has often found itself in an uneasy and isolated position. While right-wing populist parties across the continent share a common hostility toward Brussels’ bureaucratic overreach and the pervasive influence of “woke” ideology, the AfD has stood apart in its prolonged flirtation with “Dexit”, advocating a full German withdrawal from the EU—an idea largely abandoned by its counterparts. Compounding this, the party has cultivated a distinctly antagonistic stance toward Germany’s neighbors, portraying them as opportunistically leveraging Berlin’s historical guilt to siphon off German taxpayers’ money through EU subsidies. These positions, combined with what has at times appeared to be a naive idealisation of Russia, as well as awkward and increasingly marginal efforts to downplay Germany’s role in the Second World War, ultimately contributed to the AfD’s expulsion from the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament in 2024, leaving it isolated even within Europe’s populist right. The paradox of a German anti-establishment party out of step with much of the European right underscores the country’s unique dilemma: an economic powerhouse that underwrites the EU’s stability yet which remains profoundly uncertain of its own national identity.

However, this dynamic is shifting. Not only is the AfD moving away from “Dexit” in its a call for a mere reform of the EU, aligning itself thus to most other populists, it has also softened its previous scepticism toward the United States—rooted in both an anti-interventionist stance and latent admiration for Russia. With figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk expressing sympathy for the party’s challenges, and with leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán now engaging with the AfD despite previously being reluctant to do so, the party is beginning to attach itself to an international populist movement. This recalibration underscores the AfD’s growing political maturity— especially under its current leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla—but it also forces it to balance competing interests within its base.

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in German Politics

From the outset, the political establishment’s strategy has been to isolate and delegitimise the AfD. Merkel strategically leveraged the AfD’s presence to reshape the boundaries of acceptable political discourse in Germany, positioning her CDU as the only viable choice for mainstream right-leaning voters. By ensuring the AfD’s exclusion from coalition politics, she also effectively restricted the political landscape, making alliances with the CDU not just preferable, but essential. This worked—until it didn’t. The CDU’s ideological dilution and decrease in popularity, combined with a similar erosion of the SPD, has created a political void that the AfD continues to fill. The more Germany’s elites construct ideologically uniform “all-party coalitions” and exploit politicised institutions like the “Verfassungsschutz” (domestic intelligence service) to discredit the AfD and block its path to power, the more the party’s narrative of an “undemocratic” establishment of “parties of the system” gains traction—and, increasingly, credibility. Today, what was once a convenient boogeyman for Merkel’s CDU has become a structural threat to Germany’s consensus-driven political order: In a few days, the AfD will probably double its results from the last parliamentary elections in 2021 and jump from 10,3% to over 20%.

Despite its rising support, the AfD remains highly unlikely to enter government after the next election. The German media, civil service, and political apparatus are overwhelmingly aligned against it, ensuring that traditional coalition-building remains impossible–for the moment. Yet this very exclusion strengthens the party’s appeal: by continuously presenting itself as the only genuine alternative to an entrenched establishment, the AfD benefits from the perception that all other parties—CDU, SPD, Greens, and FDP—are merely factions of the same ruling bloc.

Statement

While the overwhelming force of its opponents paradoxically serves as the AfD’s greatest strength, its most significant weakness lies in its internal indecision: One of the AfD’s most enduring challenges is that it is defined more by what it opposes than by what it supports. Within its ranks, economic liberals clash with social-patriots, Europeanists debate sovereigntists, völkisch identitarians oppose more inclusive civilisationalists, and secularists argue with Christian conservatives. This internal heterogeneity has allowed the party to cast a wide net, but it also poses a fundamental question: what will the AfD become? Will it solidify into a coherent governing force, or remain a protest movement capitalising on the failures of the mainstream? Sooner or later, the AfD will have to decide not just what it is against—but what it truly stands for.