During the Nazi era of the 1930s and 1940s, Bertold Brecht (then in exile from Germany) wrote some of his darkest poems about what was happening to workers and the Left in a Germany under the dark cloud of fascism. The German election last week has seen the inconceivable happen: the rise of a fascist party in a country which was at the heart of the last major disastrous fascist experiment a century ago, which devastated Europe and cost the lives of millions. The AfD (Alliance for Germany), many of whose leading members use Nazi tropes and have been discovered making openly racist and genocidal comments about migrants, managed to capture 20% of the vote and become the second largest party in the next Bundestag. Even the slogan shouted at many of their rallies by AfD supporters, “Alice für Deutschland”, referring to party leader Alice Weidel, is a play on the brutal slogan of the Brownshirts, often shouted before they attacked their opponents, “Alles für Deutschland!” (Everything for Germany). This, along with policies such as forced deportation and the checking of the papers of German citizens from a brown or black background, is reminiscent of early Nazi policies for forced deportation of the Jews.

Why AFD did well

The AfD’s main area of support was in the poorer East, which until recently was the heartland of the Die Linke (the successor to the former Communist Party of the GDR). Since reunification, the economy and social infrastructure have decayed radically in the former GDR, with higher unemployment, lower wages, and deindustrialisation. Deutsche Welle, the German broadcaster, recently ran a pre-election programme where they visited a small town in the East called Callenberg. The only social hub in the town, where the local shop and café had closed, was the doctor, who explained that many of the older population were isolated and alone and had no expectations of the parties in Berlin. This is a fertile voting ground for the AfD, who feed off the sense of despair in an area of Germany where, ironically, there are few migrants and few opportunities. The AfD’s recipe that everything is the fault of the migrants, which was exacerbated by several recent high-profile attacks carried out by migrants and refugees, is an attractive one for many who feel that the mainstream parties have no solutions.

Who lost support?

The two main losers of this election are the SPD and the BSW (Bundnis Sarha Wagenknecht). The SPD, one of Europe’s oldest social democratic parties, gained its lowest vote since 1887, ending up with 16%. The party has almost disappeared and came close to following its French counterpart into the dustbin of history. The party which presided over the outgoing coalition government, together with the hardline Thatcherist FDP and the Greens, suffered for the decline in living standards and the mounting sense of the German economy being in crisis with a fall in manufacturing and exports. Its leader, Scholz, was seen as weak and vacillating and unable to deal with the mounting crisis of the war in Ukraine. The economist Michael Roberts wrote: “the economy shrank in 2023 and again in 2024; it seems likely to stay in recession again this year. It adds up to the longest period of economic stagnation since the fall of Hitler in 1945.” Roberts attributes this slump in part to rising energy prices, due to the boycott of Russia, adding “the biggest drop came in the pandemic and profitability is now at an historic low.”

Its traditional working-class base departed the party in droves, many going to the AfD but others to the more radical Die Linke. Their rhetoric has often echoed the anti-migrant tropes of the CDU and the other right-wing parties and they have consistently moved to the right on this theme. The SPD is now lined up to be the coalition partner of the winning CDU and if they enter such a coalition it may spell the final end of the party which put the brakes on the German Revolution in 1919.

Defeat for SGW

One of the most important outcomes of the election is that it has demonstrated that a Leftist, socially conservative, anti-migrant party is a political cul-de-sac. BSW, which is a personality cult type party along the lines of Galloway’s Workers Party, was vehemently opposed to migrants and the defence of minorities. It eschewed issues such as LGBTQ rights and even went so far as to vote recently with the AfD and CDU on the anti-migrant measures to close the borders in the Bundestag. Many estimated that Wagenknecht leaving  Die Linke and pursuing a populist line meant that her party would become the dominant Left party in Germany. In recent state elections in the East, BSW did well but crashed and burned in this general election, failing to reach the 5% hurdle necessary to gain seats in the Bundestag. It seems that many of their voters crossed to the AfD, which offered a similar political menu of opposition to both migrants and supporting Ukraine. The only area where BSW stood out was their position on Palestine and the war in Gaza, where they took a pro-Palestine position, a position which is very difficult to assume politically in Germany, where, in view of the history of the Holocaust and Germany’s central role in it, any criticism of Israel is considered taboo, and even wearing a pro-Palestine tee shirt can be grounds for arrest.

Die Linke breakthrough

Die Linke, who many had written off a few months ago, made a surprising comeback, gaining 9% at the national level and becoming the party with the largest vote in Berlin, gaining seats for the first time in West Berlin in areas with large numbers of migrant voters. Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of this election was that the Muslim vote moved mainly to Die Linke, whereas formerly it had gone to the SPD. This is ironic, considering that Die Linke had taken a very soft line on Gaza, but since the departure of the Zionist faction in the party and under the party’s new leadership, they have begun to improve their stance, insisting that Netanyahu should be arrested in accordance with international law if he goes to Berlin, which Merz, the new CDU Chancellor, has invited him to visit.

In the working-class district of Berlin-Neukööln, anti-racist activist FeratKoçak won a direct mandate — the first direct mandate that Die Linke has ever won in West Germany. During the election, Ferat issued a leaflet in support of Palestine and did well in a constituency with many Muslim voters. However, the sober reality is that Die Linke only captured 8% of the working-class vote in Germany, whereas the Fascist AfD gained 38% of that vote. This shows the mountain which the Left needs to climb in Germany to see off the fascist threat.

Greens setback

The Green vote fell, although not as badly as some had predicted, and their vote divided amongst the CDU with a few going to Die Linke. The result seems to confirm that green measures, especially costly ones at a time of increasing poverty and unemployment, are not popular.  They were blamed partly for the rising costs of energy because of the ending of both cheap Russian gas and nuclear energy, which the Merkel grand coalition had agreed to phase out. Opinion polls also showed that whereas environmental issues and climate change featured highly in the last election, they scored much lower in this election. Their fate echoes that of many other European green parties in recent years when fighting climate change can often be characterised by the Right as an expensive hobby for the well-to-do. It is certainly true that statistically the Greens have the lowest level of working-class support of any party, whereas their supporters have tended to come from the highest socioeconomic groups.

Challenge for Left

The new reality is a conservative government led by the CDU in some form of coalition with the SPD and with a supercharged fascist party as the main opposition, waiting for this government to fail in order to claim power in a few years’ time.  The next few years in Germany will be a turbulent period and a massive challenge for the Left to stave off fascism and create a better Germany. The war in Ukraine and the resulting increases in the defence budget, which Merz is already planning for, plus the uncertain future of the German economy buffeted by possible tariffs on German exports from the USA, will create instability. At the same time we will see the mounting hysteria about migrants and Islamophobia whipped up by the AfD and likely supported by the CDU.

As Brecht wrote in his poem “The Fighters in the Concentration Camps”:

So you are

Vanished but

Not forgotten

Beaten down but

Never confuted

Along with all those incorrigibly fighting

Unteachably set on the truth

Now and forever the true

Leaders of Germany.

Never has Brecht’s poem seemed so apt as now.