The right gains ground in Germany, but not without challenge

German politics has shifted strongly to the right following the federal election on 23 February. The conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union alliance will now lead a coalition government, after support plummeted for the parties that formed the previous coalition government. They have vowed to introduce hardline anti-migrant policies, attacks on workers and a massive expansion of the military. Even more menacingly, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved its best result ever, coming in second place with 20.8 percent of the vote.

Since the AfD formed a decade ago, parties from across the political spectrum have insisted they will never work with the far right. The conservatives recently softened this “firewall” by working with the AfD to pass an anti-immigrant bill at the end of January. For years, sections of the conservatives, particularly those in the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, have flirted with the far right, but this was a significant step in normalising the AfD in mainstream politics. The Social Democrats, along with most other political parties, have contributed to this normalisation by drawing on the same anti-migrant rhetoric espoused by the far right.

The election results reinforce this shift. The conservatives and the AfD hold a clear parliamentary majority. The AfD is campaigning hard for the conservatives to break with the firewall and form a coalition government. The conservatives have ruled this out for now, but there is a very real possibility that it could happen in the years ahead.

The AfD’s rise is not, however, going unchallenged. Over the last fourteen months, a movement has emerged to resist the far right. Widespread protests broke out in early 2024 after it was revealed that a secret meeting in Potsdam discussed plans for the “remigration”—deportation—of large numbers of migrants and German-born citizens from migrant backgrounds. Alongside the AfD were members of the ultra-right-wing faction of the conservatives.

Protests outside AfD offices grew from the thousands to hundreds of thousands. On 3 February, an estimated 300,000 marched in Berlin alone. By April, the German daily newspaper taz reported that more than 1,800 protests involving around 4 million people had taken place across the country. These protests were the biggest since those opposing the Iraq war in 2003, and among the largest in postwar German history.

Once the initial wave of protests subsided, left-wing activists continued to organise and mobilise. New organisations emerged, including the Studis gegen Rechts (Students against the Right), and older anti-fascist organisations found new life as thousands of young people got involved.

Last June, tens of thousands descended on the city of Essen to protest the AfD’s annual conference. Police were drafted from around the country to try to stop the 70,000 protesters from disrupting the event. This year, the conference was moved to the regional town of Riesa, Saxony, to try to avoid demonstrations. Nevertheless, 15,000 protesters travelled there to take a stand against the far right.

A new wave of protests erupted after the conservatives and the far right teamed up on the anti-migrant bill. Thousands blockaded the offices of the Christian Democratic Union in Berlin. At an AfD event in Freiburg, 25,000 out of a population of 230,000 came out to protest.

A significant section of people taking part in these protests have gravitated towards the left-wing Die Linke party. In the federal election Die Linke, which had suffered a crisis for several years, revived and won 8.7 percent of the vote. Around 30,000 new members joined the party over the last year, numbers accelerating following the conservative-far right collaboration.

Heidi Reichinnek, one of Die Linke’s parliamentary leaders, stridently attacked the Christian Democrats for “paving the way for the resurgence of fascism” in a video that was viewed more than 30 million times on TikTok. Thousands of new activists joined Die Linke’s campaign in the West Berlin district of Neukölln. They won a landslide victory for Ferat Koçak, a pro-Palestine activist with a Kurdish background.

Die Linke did particularly well amongst young people, becoming the most popular party for those aged 18 to 24, and securing the votes of more than a third of young women. The party also came first in Berlin.

It’s positive that the AfD’s high vote isn’t the only story coming out of the election. However, there are significant problems with Die Linke. This is not a new radical party: it has existed since 2007 and is led by veteran moderate reformist politicians. It has participated in coalition state governments in Bremen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and it led the government in Thuringia for a decade. In these states, it oversaw neoliberal budgets and allowed refugees to be deported.

While Die Linke positions itself as an activist opposition party, it is also open to forming a future coalition government. There has long been a Zionist wing of Die Linke. and moderate leftists like Reichinnek emphasise that they support Israel’s so-called “right to defend itself”. Last December, Die Linke expelled the pro-Palestine activist Ramsis Kilani for “bringing the party into disrepute”.

This is not a radical anti-capitalist party by any stretch of the imagination. However, despite these serious problems, the electoral support for the left, as well as the activism against the far right, reveals that there is a polarisation to the left in Germany, centred on young people, that cuts against the grain of the overall conservative shift.

This is vital. The far right is winning ground in country after country. It can be easy to despair in the face of this, particularly when there doesn’t appear to be a spontaneous revolt against Trump and his ilk. As in the past, though, it is the actions of a radical minority that can begin the process of creating the larger left-wing opposition we need. Hopefully, that is what we are seeing amongst young people in Germany.