Fascists in Germany as strong as in the 1930s

On September 1st, state elections were held in the Eastern German states of Thuringia and Saxony. Ahead of the elections, polls already showed that the fascist AfD party (Alternative für Deutschland) was set to make huge gains. Election results on Sunday showed that the fascists are today as strong as they were the last time in the 1930s when Hitler’s NSDAP won 33% in the federal elections in 1932.

The election results in Thuringia are the following: AfD has increased by 7.1% since the last elections and now has 33%, making it the strongest party in Thuringia.

The reformist Left party (Die Linke), which used to be the strongest party in the state, lost 18,5% and now received 12,5% of the votes. The coalition Sahra Wagenknecht (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht), which was just founded last year, received 16%, while the Social Democrats got 7%, the Greens 4% and the Conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) 24,5%.

In Saxony, AfD received 30% of the votes (up 3% from the last election), CDU 31,5%, Die Linke lost 8,3% and only received 4% of the votes. The Greens got 5.5%, Social Democrats 8.5%, and Coalition Sahra Wagenknecht 12%.

In light of the economic failures of the ruling parties, the racist fearmongering that the AfD spews has gained it much support.

Weeks, if not months, of racist fear-mongering, which the bourgeois parties participated in, allowed for the talking points of the AfD to become normalized. The Social Democrats, Greens, as well as the “left-conservative” newly founded Coalition Sahra Wagenknecht (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht) all participated in calling for more deportations, for surveillance of “Islamists,” for reducing migration to Germany. Sahra Wagenknecht, a former member of the reformist pro-zionist Left party (Die Linke), which has dwindled in numbers due to its unclear policies on key issues, has for years been arguing that refugees and migrants are taking away jobs from Germans. This racist climate has allowed the AfD to spread its ideas further into the “middle” of society.

The AfD is a fascist party whose key figure is Björn Höcke, one of the party leaders who has been re-elected to the state parliament of Thuringia.

When the AfD was founded in 2013, the party initially aimed to leave the Euro and re-establish a national currency. This attracted a broad coalition of Euro skeptics, national liberals, and economic liberals, unified in demanding less state, less social security, and overall more unbridled capitalism. In 2013, it was unclear which forces would propel this new party. Since then, it has become a fully-fledged fascist party to establish a terror regime in Germany. Hereby, Höcke has played a central role.

Höcke is now infamous in Germany for his speeches, in which he often uses Nazi rhetoric. Notably, in 2015, he co-founded a caucus called “The Wing” and organized to position the party further to the right. While Höcke immediately made headlines through racist, Islamophobic, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic remarks, others were more careful and worked in the background to cement the Wing’s influence against the economic conservatives within the party. With the influx of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan since 2015, AfD was able to capitalize on their xenophobia, racism, and islamophobia: the racist AfD ideology crept into the politics of all established parties, fueling divisive hate. One then high-ranking politician of the AfD, Frauke Petry, in 2016 even suggested shooting refugees at the borders. Under Angela Merkel, the general sentiment in Germany was, “We can do this.” Today, mainstream political opinion is to strengthen borders and build a “Fortress Europe.” This is also thanks to AfD politicians, who always sought center stage to platform their racist bigotry and were ultimately backed by the laws made by the social democrats and liberals.

Although “The Wing” has officially been disbanded since 2020, it should be common knowledge by now that Höcke and other AfD cadres are extremely well connected with the old neo-nazi milieu nationally as well as internationally, which helps them in their efforts to secure donations and organize street terror. In 2018 Höcke, his AfD wing, and open Neo-Nazis led marches through the city of Chemnitz, where pogrom-like attacks on refugees and migrants took place in broad daylight. The AfD openly supports and has built up the far-right, islamophobic PEGIDA movement in Dresden as well, which, in typical white supremacist jargon, warns of a “great replacement” in Germany.

Right now, the AfD uses their connections in the neo-nazi milieu to build up their small thuggish street groups that beat up politicians and instill fear, especially in rural areas in former East Germany. So far, there is no organization like the stormtroopers, but the level of violence is constantly increasing. Showing their true colors, Berlin landlord and AfD member Andreas Geithe “allegedly” wrote on Twitter, “We should found the stormtroopers and start to clean up!” He, too, could be connected to banned right-wing extremist parties from the 90s. Höcke and his supporters make it abundantly clear that they view the Nazi dictatorship in Germany as but a small fraction of Germany’s history.

Over time, this increased emphasis on far-right policy-making and organizing street terror made the more parliamentary-focused but not fascist members leave the party; examples include the former party leaders Petry and Meuthen. Some of the party conservatives, who previously had provided a bourgeois-democratic cover for the fascist wing, were even actively bullied out by Höcke and his supporters.

Due to the rising influence of Höcke’s Wing within the Party with their clear Nazi rhetoric, fascist political proposals, and active efforts to establish street terror, the party has consolidated itself as a fascist party. A fascist party that we, as revolutionary socialists, must do everything to fight against.

Although the established bourgeois German parties claim that they don’t want anything to do with AfD, last year it was revealed that ties are closer than they would like to admit. Journalists infiltrated a secret meeting in Potsdam where AfD cadres tried to make plans for the mass deportation of refugees, German citizens with a “migrant background,” and anyone deemed “non-German.” This meeting shed light on the fascist ideology of AfD’s plan to institute a reign of terror. Attendees of the secret meeting included not only AfD members and other right-wing groups but also members from the conservative Christian Democratic party. Similar meetings have been taking place since 2021.
These revelations sparked public outrage, but instead of showing a clear profile against the fascists, German politicians continued to pass policies that played right into their hands, which led to further gains for AfD in the polls.

We need a sustained mass movement supported by the unions and a broad coalition of organizations that works within a united front to fight against the fascist AfD and their allies. Individual protests can only be a starting point. The Nazis need to encounter masses that oppose them everywhere they go.