one scandal too many for the AfD?

Much more numerous than expected. Since Friday January 19, demonstrations have continued in Germany against the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. And each time, the scale of the mobilization exceeded expectations, underline the media on the other side of the Rhine.

Thus, in Munich, up to 250,000 people marched on Sunday January 21 in the streets of the regional capital of Bavaria… while the organizers had anticipated ten times fewer demonstrators, says the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the main daily newspaper in the south of Germany. Ditto in Hamburg, a port city in the north of the country, which saw the first large-scale anti-AfD demonstrations take place on Friday.

Revelations about a far-right plot

Around a million people took to the streets over the weekend shouting “Don’t let history repeat itself” or “the AfD is a nightmare for Germany”, according to the “Friday for Future” association which is one of the organizers of these gatherings.

This sudden surge of protest may have come as a surprise in a country where the AfD has firmly established itself in second place among the most popular parties behind the conservative CDU.

The popular mobilization is largely explained by the revelations of the Correctiv media on the AfD, which have continued to make waves in Germany since January 10. This consortium of investigative journalists uncovered a secret meeting, which took place in November 2023 between members of small far-right and neo-Nazi groups with several executives of the Alternative für Deutschland.

The participants in this meeting – which took place in a villa in Potsdam in the former East Germany – would have discussed policies that were, to say the least, controversial to be implemented in the event of the country coming to power. ‘AfD. The heart of their discussions concerned a vast “remigration” project, that is to say expelling some of the immigrants residing in Germany.

“What was particularly shocking was that this project (as described by Correctiv, Editor’s note) concerned all foreigners qualified as ‘non-assimilated’”, underlines Claire Burchett, specialist in far-right movements in Europe at King’s. College London. This concept of “non-assimilated” remains sufficiently vague to allow the far right to also include people of foreign origin with a German passport.

This “remigration” in the very broad sense has brought back the specter of the “Nazi project to expel all Jews to Madagascar (the “Madagaskarplan” of 1940, Editor’s note)”, underlines Claire Burchett.

These revelations from Correctiv did not, by themselves, incite so many Germans to demonstrate, but they were “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, assures Benjamin Höhne, political scientist at the University of Magdeburg .

Mobilization in AfD strongholds

“Of course the Germans already knew that the AfD was a party increasingly on the far right of the political spectrum, but the Correctiv investigation illustrated in a very concrete way the links with the most extremist movements , including neo-Nazis,” points out Julian Hörner, a political scientist at the University of Birmingham who has written on the rise of the AfD.

The Germans now had very concrete reasons to demonstrate against the Alternative für Deutschland. And not just anti-fascist organizations and left-wing movements. “What we were able to see this weekend were entire families who marched and also people who define themselves more as centrists and are less used to demonstrating against the extreme right,” noted Hans Vorländer , political scientist at the University of Dresden and specialist on the far right.

01:45

In Bavaria, officials of the CSU – the very right-wing regional branch of the conservative CDU party – even joined the demonstrators, underlines the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “This gives more weight to these gatherings which no longer only fit into the classic left versus right pattern,” adds Hans Vorländer.

After this weekend of frank mobilization, “it will be much more difficult for AfD officials to maintain that they are the representatives of the people,” adds Benjamin Höhne. In this regard, the demonstrations that took place in the cities of the former GDR are particularly important in the eyes of this expert : it is in these regions that the German far right achieves its best results. The anti-AfD mobilization of tens of thousands of people proves that even in these territories, the revelations of Correctiv shocked.

On the other hand, nothing suggests for the moment that these demonstrations can thwart the electoral ambitions of the AfD. “According to the latest polls, these parades only had a marginal impact on voting intentions for the AfD,” underlines Julian Hörner.

No consequences for the AfD?

Good news for the far-right party since three major elections are looming on the horizon. Indeed, in September 2024, the Länders of Saxonia, Thuringia and Brandenburg – all located in former East Germany – will elect their regional parliament and the AfD hopes to emerge victorious. For now, vote projections place the far-right party in the lead… for all three elections.

“We will have to see if the mobilization continues, if political leaders from other parties take up the subject, to be able to really measure the consequences of this affair”, affirms Claire Burchett.

The most likely explanation for this lack of impact on voters’ choice is that “the AfD vote is not a protest vote against the existing parties, but increasingly a vote of adhesion. And the revelations from Correctiv will not have a great influence on this panel, summarizes Julian Hörner.

This scandal has nevertheless revived debates on the banning of the AfD. But for these discussions to not only remain theoretical, “a political party would have to demand that the AfD be declared illegal,” underlines Benjamin Höhne. For the moment, no party has yet embarked on such a procedure.

For Hans Vorländer, the only certainty is that “from now on a politician who would like to ally with the AfD at local level will no longer be able to claim that he was not aware of the extremist positions of this party”. In this sense, this scandal represents a serious obstacle to the demonization efforts that the AfD has been pursuing for almost a decade.