What to Do Against Increasing Racism shortly before German General Elections?

By Omnia Magdy

German federal elections are in less than two weeks, and racism is the driving force across the political spectrum. The fascist AfD party (Alternative für Deutschland) is set to be the second strongest party, with polls showing the party at 20%, while the center-right CDU (Christian Democrats) is strongest at 34%.

At the end of January, massive demonstrations broke out across Germany. The reason was that the CDU was able to achieve a majority in parliament on the 29th of January for a racist “five-point plan” to restrict migration together with the AfD and FDP (Liberals). This was the first time that a vote had received a majority through the fascist AfD. This was widely seen as a breach of the “Brandmauer” or Firewall, whereby German political parties across the isle had purported to not work together with the AfD. But did a firewall ever really exist between the bourgeois-liberal parties and the fascists?

AfD is a Fascist Threat

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across Germany took to the streets, demanding that the AfD be isolated. The protests seem to have achieved a rupture within the CDU and FDP as individual parliamentarians decided not to vote for the “Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz” two days later, on the 31st of January, when the content of the motion was to be voted on to become a law. The law failed to pass narrowly in parliament due to this. Although the BSW (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht) Party had moved from absentia on the 29th of January to vote for the law on the 31st of January.

The law was meant to implement: Permanent border controls at all German borders; Consistent rejection of all attempts to enter the country illegally; De facto entry ban for people without valid entry documents; Immediate detention of people required to leave the country; Tightening of residence rights for criminals and dangerous people.

Bourgeois Parties Setting Fertile Soil for the AfD

If one listens to the Greens and Social Democrats’ (who are in power) response to the CDU’s collaboration with the AfD, it becomes clear why the political discourse has shifted to the Right. The Greens have declared that the content of the law that Friedrich Merz (Candidate for Chancellor of the CDU) tried to push through with the AfD is factually already taken care of in the racist GEAS law, through which the right to asylum is heavily restricted and which the Greens helped set into law.

During the current election campaign, the Greens candidate for chancellor, Robert Habeck, has called for Syrian refugees who “don’t work” to be sent back to Syria. The Greens have demanded more deportations and warn against the “dangers of Islamism,” a bogeyman that marks five million Muslims in Germany as potential suspects.

The Social Democrats’ candidate Olaf Scholz declared in October 2023, after the beginning of the Israeli genocide against Gaza, that “We have to deport on a large scale.” The SPD has demanded that deportations to Afghanistan and Syria be made possible again. Hoping to win over voters by implementing racist policies. Scholz has said that those who “glorify terrorist crimes” shall also be deported. The consequences of this are grave, as what constitutes “glorifying terrorist crimes” is extremely vague, as liking or sharing a pro-Palestine post online can already count as supporting “terrorist propaganda,” the Minister of Interior Nancy Faeser proudly stated.

A Firewall?

The political establishment’s agreement that Palestine solidarity constitutes terrorist propaganda has played into the hands of the AfD. In November 2024, a resolution on “protecting Jewish life” that was brought in by the SPD, Greens, FDP, and CDU was passed in parliament and argued that “imported Muslim antisemitism” is a threat to Germany. This very resolution was also passed with the vote of the AfD.

It further argued that “Muslim Antisemites” should be deported. The AfD’s Beatrix von Storch (granddaughter of Hitler’s minister of finance) thanked the Greens in her speech in parliament thereafter, saying that the Greens have finally taken up AfD positions on imported antisemitism by Muslim immigrants.

In October 2023, shortly after the 7th of October, all parties in the German parliament, including the pro-Zionist Left Party (die Linke), CDU, SPD, FDP, Greens, and the fascist AfD unanimously voted together (for the first time in history) on a motion that granted full solidarity and support to Israel. It also argued that residency permits of migrants should be revoked if they support the Palestinian resistance.

Since then, virtually every party has supported authoritarian measures against the pro-Palestine movement. Over one year of genocide in Gaza, the ruling parties in Germany still stand unconditionally behind the Zionist state – militarily, politically, and ideologically.

To distract from worse living conditions for the German working class due to the austerity measures by the ruling German government, the bourgeois parties have gleefully used racist arguments. Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, admitted recently publicly that the government reduced spending on public infrastructure, like schools or public transportation, in order to ramp up military spending. In order to deflect from the fact that increased military spending or crumbling public infrastructure is not in the interest of the German working class, the German ruling class has once again whipped up the narrative that migrants are to blame for all societal ills. The maneuver of using racist talking points that scapegoat migrants to distract from horrific capitalist economic policies has effectively strengthened the AfD which itself wants massive tax breaks for the rich.

It is important to scandalize bourgeois parties across the isle, even if it is the racist CDU, working together with the AfD. But it is mistaken to hold that a “firewall” existed in the past.

Overall, if one looks at the laws, demands, and rhetoric of the Social Democrats and the Greens in the last months, if not years, one sees that they have been fanning the flames of racism, which has offered fertile ground for the fascist AfD in the first place. Moreover, the Greens and Social Democrats have often voted with the AfD, especially when it comes to supporting the genocide in Gaza or criminalizing and repressing the Palestine solidarity movement in Germany. Furthermore, the CDU has even worked together with the AfD in many regional districts and state parliaments over the years when it comes to restricting the rights of refugees and migrants.

A Revolutionary Socialist Answer

In this context, Revolutionary Socialists must do twofold:

For one, it is necessary mobilize against the collaboration with the AfD in German parliament. The fascist AfD poses a threat that would unleash a reign of fascist terror once in power that goes far beyond the racist policies of the bourgeois parties. Lessons must be learnt from the failures of the German Communist Party (KPD) and Social Democrats (SPD) not working together during the rise of fascism in the 1920s. The disastrous Stalinist notion that the Social Democrats are “Social Fascists” hindered the formation of a united front between KPD and SPD which had fatal consequences: the NSDAP (Nazi party) came to power and crushed both a divided KPD and SPD, putting their cadres in concentration camps and killing them while carrying through its murderous Nazi dictatorship (1933-1945).

Hence, it is essential to form a united front against fascism, which also means working together with reformist parties and trade unions to fight against the AfD on every front. Only mass mobilization that confronts fascists at every turn, can stop the fascists.

At the same time, being in a united front against fascism must also mean that Revolutionary Socialists must keep their independence and clarify that the reformists do not offer a solution to root out the causes of fascism. To smash fascism, capitalism must be disposed of, and this cannot be achieved through reformism (while mainstream reformist parties do not even speak of dismantling capitalism anymore).

Thus, within a united front, Revolutionary Socialists must concretely highlight the complicity of the leadership of the reformist parties, be they SPD, Greens, of not only facilitating the setting that has allowed the AfD to grow but also factually voting together with the AfD when it comes support for genocide and the racist clamping down on Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims in Germany. If hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets to demonstrate against the AfD then it is the duty of Revolutionary Socialists to win over the base of the reformist parties and trade unions, to dock at their contradictory consciousness and win them over.

This is no easy task, as previous anti-AfD protests have shown Palestinians physically attacked and pro-Palestine activists kicked out and assaulted. Yet, opportunism is not the answer. Although we will surely not convince the heads of reformist Zionist parties of the Palestinian liberation struggle by all means necessary, we must fight for pro-Palestine and Palestinian groups to be an organic part of anti-fascist protests and alliances.

Not only are Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims the main targets of AfD racist attacks, but the AfD is a deeply pro-zionist party. Recently, Alice Weidel, in an interview with Elon Musk, said that a Palestinian-leftist conspiracy is following in the antisemitic legacy of Adolf Hitler, who she claims was actually a communist. This vile historical revisionism is startling but not surprising if one looks at the way that fascists from the AfD have been claiming for years that Muslim and Arab immigrants are to blame for anti-Semitism in Germany. The AfD has staunchly supported Israel’s genocidal war, while purporting that the Nazi dictatorship was a mere “birdshit” of history.

Hence, the question of Palestine is not abstractly connected to the struggle against fascism in Germany. Revolutionary Socialists in Germany are marginal, splintered, and small. They cannot voluntaristically decide the direction that an anti-fascist movement must go. Rather, Revolutionary Socialists must fight in those local and regional alliances that they are in, for pro-Palestine groups to be included and not excluded. At the same time argue that protesting “against racism” means standing with Palestine, winning over protestors with contradictory consciousnesses to revolutionary consciousness, and joining internationalist Revolutionary Socialist organizations.