The elections in Saxony-Anhalt could bring Alternative for Germany into state government for the first time. But the main threat to Berlin is not a single regional cabinet: the entire political architecture that sustained post-war Germany is collapsing.
Germany grew accustomed to viewing itself as a state that had learned to neutralize political extremes institutionally. The Constitution, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, party funding, coalition culture, civil society, and a tacit ban on working with radicals were meant to guarantee that forces questioning the foundations of the post-war order would never gain real power.
This system no longer appears impenetrable.
On September 6, 2026, state elections will take place in Saxony-Anhalt, capable of creating a fundamentally new political reality. According to an INSA poll conducted July 14–21, Alternative for Germany leads with 41%, the Christian Democratic Union receives 24%, the Left Party gets 14%, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany stands at 5%. The Greens, the Free Democratic Party, and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance remain below the five-percent threshold.
With this distribution of votes, the AfD could not only win first place, but also approach an absolute majority of seats. The reason is simple: the votes of parties that fail to clear the threshold are excluded from seat allocation. Forty-one percent of the vote, with several small parties dropping out, can translate into nearly half of the parliamentary seats.
For the first time since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, a far-right party could find itself at the head of a state government. Not entering a coalition as a junior partner, not supporting a cabinet from the outside, not receiving a deputy parliamentary speaker post, but claiming control over regional executive power.
Saxony-Anhalt is becoming not a peripheral episode, but a proving ground for the future of Germany.
The Forty-One Percent That Changes the Rules of the Game
An AfD victory in itself will no longer be a sensation. The party won elections in Thuringia, became the second-largest force at the federal level, and has long dominated much of eastern Germany. What will be historic is something else: the ability to turn an electoral advantage into executive power.
A state government in Germany is not a decorative administration. It controls police, education, cultural policy, regional security bodies, the allocation of a significant portion of budgetary funds, personnel appointments, and the operation of the state apparatus. State representatives participate in the work of the Bundesrat - the upper house of parliament, through which laws affecting regional interests must pass.
If the AfD forms a cabinet in Magdeburg, its ministers will sit at the same table with the leaders of the other states. Party representatives will gain access to intergovernmental meetings, departmental information, and the process of preparing federal decisions. Political isolation will become nearly impossible.
This is precisely why the dispute over Saxony-Anhalt extends far beyond a region with a population of around two million people. At stake is the destruction of the "firewall" - the principle that democratic parties do not form coalitions or parliamentary majorities with the AfD.
Until now, this mechanism made it possible to separate the party’s high poll numbers from real power. The AfD could score 20, 30, or even 35%, but remained in opposition because the remaining forces united against it. Now arithmetic is beginning to work against the creators of the "firewall."
The stronger the AfD becomes, the more artificial the coalitions of its opponents grow. The Christian Democrats must negotiate with Social Democrats, the Greens, the Left, or supporters of Sahra Wagenknecht - parties with which the CDU has deep ideological disagreements. Such alliances are created not around a shared program, but around a negative goal: keeping the AfD out of power.
Voters see a coalition whose members yesterday called each other a threat to the economy, security, and national interests, and today sit in the same cabinet. The AfD gains the opportunity to present any such construct as a cartel of old parties protecting their own posts rather than the state.
The "firewall," conceived as a means of isolating radicals, is gradually turning into proof of their main propaganda thesis: that the entire system has supposedly ganged up against the "Alternative."
From a Professors' Club to a Political Rage Machine
The AfD was not created as a classic far-right party. It emerged on February 6, 2013, at the height of the Eurozone debt crisis. Its founders were economists, university professors, euroskeptics, and former representatives of the CDU’s right wing. Its first prominent leader was economics professor Bernd Lucke.
The initial platform was built around criticism of financial bailouts for Greece, the single European currency, and the policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The name "Alternative for Germany" was a direct response to Merkel’s assertion that there was "no alternative" to saving the Eurozone.
However, the party quickly realized the limitations of economic euroskepticism. Bank guarantees, Greek bonds, and fiscal discipline could not generate mass mobilization. The real political fuel turned out to be migration.
Following the Merkel government’s decision to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees in 2015, the AfD shifted both its social base and ideological structure. Bernd Lucke was ousted by Frauke Petry, who then lost power to Alexander Gauland and more radical factions. Björn Höcke, who headed the Thuringia organization and became the chief ideologue of the ethno-nationalist wing, gained prominence.
Every internal crisis resulted not in the party's collapse, but in its further movement to the right. Those who wanted to keep the AfD within a national-conservative or liberal-euroskeptic framework departed. Those who remained were politicians who viewed migration, Islam, multiculturalism, and European integration as manifestations of the loss of German sovereignty.
The party's electoral trajectory confirms the success of this transformation. In the 2013 Bundestag elections, the party received 4.7% and failed to clear the threshold. In 2017, its result rose to 12.6%, allowing the AfD to enter the federal parliament for the first time. In 2021, the figure fell to 10.3%, leading opponents to believe its growth had stalled.
They were mistaken.
In the snap election on February 23, 2025, the AfD received 20.8% of second votes - 10,328,780 ballots - and 152 seats in the Bundestag. This was nearly double its 2021 result and 69 seats more than the party held previously. It became the country's second-largest political force and the main opposition caucus.
A party that began as a narrow circle of euro opponents transformed into an organization backed by every fifth German voter.
The AfD Is No Longer Just a Protest: People Vote for It as a Power Player
The primary mistake of traditional parties is that they continue to describe AfD supporters as a temporary protest electorate.
A protest vote can be won back by addressing the specific cause of discontent. A committed supporter is much harder to regain because they view the party not as a pressure tool, but as the bearer of their own identity.
The AfD has crossed precisely this threshold.
For a significant portion of its electorate, it is no longer just about migration. The party offers a cohesive worldview in which Germany is portrayed as a state captured by out-of-touch elites, Brussels bureaucracy, environmental ideologues, liberal media, and politicians who subordinate national interests to external commitments.
This model explains almost everything to an AfD supporter: expensive energy, industrial plant closures, housing shortages, tax hikes, school issues, crime, sanctions against Russia, spending on Ukraine, European Union regulations, and the altering of familiar cultural spaces.
The strength of such a construct lies not in its precision, but in its universality. It ties disparate fears into a single political narrative and names the culprit.
Traditional parties respond to each problem separately. Economists talk about productivity, demographers about population aging, security specialists about terrorism, the government about European obligations, and municipalities about budget shortages. The AfD offers one explanation: the state no longer belongs to its own citizens.
In a political struggle, a unified - if simplified - narrative is often stronger than ten professionally prepared reports.
Eastern Germany: Territory of Unfinished Unification
The success of the AfD is particularly noticeable in the states of the former GDR. In the 2025 federal elections, the party received about 34.5% in the East, compared to roughly 17.9% in the West. The gap is nearly double.
Explaining this solely through the legacy of authoritarianism or a lack of democratic culture is convenient, but superficial. Eastern Germany went through a massive economic and social upheaval following reunification.
Enterprises closed, workforces dissolved, young and educated residents left for the West, and leadership positions in administrations, universities, companies, and media were often filled by transplants from the old federal states. Formally, unification occurred in 1990, but a sense of institutional inequality persisted.
The average wage of workers in the eastern states remains at about 86% of the West German level. In several regions, real estate values are lower, there are fewer major corporate headquarters, the tax base is weaker, and demographic decline is more acute.
For a resident of Magdeburg, Halle, or a small town in Thuringia, the debate over equality is not reducible to statistics. They see that after decades of promises, their region remains a supplier of labor and electoral headaches, but rarely becomes a decision-making center.
The AfD has successfully turned this discontent into a political identity. It tells Eastern Germans that they are once again being treated as second-class citizens - this time not by communist functionaries, but by the liberal elites of Berlin, Brussels, and Hamburg.
Even criticism of the party reinforces this interpretation. When West German commentators attribute the AfD’s success to the "backwardness of the East," the party receives confirmation of its own thesis regarding elite contempt.
As a result, voting for the "Alternative" becomes not just a choice of platform, but an act of regional self-assertion.
Germany's Economic Model Broke Before Its Political One
The rise of the AfD cannot be understood without the crisis of the German economy.
For decades, the Federal Republic relied on a simple, highly effective formula: affordable Russian energy, industrial exports to China, American security guarantees, and a unified European market.
Every element of this model came under pressure.
Following the start of Russia's war against Ukraine, Germany renounced its former energy dependence. Prices for industry surged. China shifted from an export market into a competitor capable of manufacturing automobiles, machinery, solar panels, batteries, and chemical products. US President Trump increased tariff pressure on European exports and demanded that allies sharply raise military spending.
The German economy contracted in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, growth stood at just 0.2%. The European Commission projects GDP expansion of 0.6% in 2026 and 0.9% in 2027. Exports shrank for three consecutive years, investments are recovering slowly, and industry continues to lose jobs.
The Bundesbank offers an even more cautious estimate: around 0.5% growth in 2026 and 0.8% in 2027. Even these figures depend largely on increased government spending on infrastructure and defense.
For a macroeconomist, half-a-percent growth signifies stagnation. For a voter, it means a shuttered factory, a canceled shift, pricier heating, the inability to purchase a home, and anxiety over their children's future.
The AfD proposes bringing back cheap energy, restoring relations with Moscow, lifting sanctions, curtailing environmental regulations, and slashing spending on migrants and Ukraine. The economic viability of this platform is questionable. Returning to the former model of relations with Russia will not automatically restore the competitiveness of German industry, and a conflict with the EU would hit the primary market for German companies.
However, in politics, voters do not compare econometric models. They compare a past they remember as stable with a present they perceive as deteriorating. The AfD sells them the promise of a return to a predictable world.
The government offers reform. The AfD offers revenge over reality.
The Migration Trap: When the Center Echoes the Radical Playbook
Migration has become the AfD's largest political asset, yet here too, the government's dilemma goes deeper than the number of arrivals.
In 2025, Germany registered 168,543 asylum applications, including 113,236 first-time applications. The flow has decreased significantly compared to crisis periods. In May 2026, the number of first-time applications was nearly 30% lower than a year prior.
The government tightened border controls, expanded the practice of entry rejections, accelerated return procedures, and supported the implementation of the EU-wide migration pact. From a practical policy standpoint, Germany is already moving toward restrictions.
Yet this produces no political dividend.
The reason lies in the fact that the CDU attempts to compete with the AfD on its own turf, but cannot and should not adopt its methods. The government is bound by the Constitution, European law, international conventions, judicial procedures, the stance of its coalition partner, and the need to address the economy's labor requirements.
The AfD faces no such constraints in its rhetoric. It can promise mass deportations, closed borders, and radical migration cuts without offering a detailed explanation of the legal, economic, and diplomatic fallout.
When the Chancellor echoes parts of the AfD's arguments, he does not peel voters away from it. He confirms that the party defined the problem correctly. A voter who considers migration the primary source of the crisis does not choose a cautious copy; they choose the original.
Simultaneously, centrist and left-wing audiences begin to perceive the CDU as a diluted version of the AfD. Consequently, the Chancellor fails to win right-wing voters while losing the trust of moderates.
It is a classic agenda-setting trap: the party that dictates the language of the debate wins, even when its proposals are not formally adopted.
Merz Promised to Stop the AfD - and Made It the Top Party
Friedrich Merz built his political career on the promise to pull the CDU back to the right and stem the outflow of conservative voters to the AfD.
The result turned out to be the exact opposite.
In the 2025 elections, the CDU and CSU won, but lacked the votes to form a single-party government. Merz was forced to enter a coalition with the SPD - a party many conservatives view as a continuation of the previous center-left trajectory.
Voters who expected a break from their predecessors' policies saw yet another compromise. Reforms moved slowly, the economy failed to transition into robust growth, and internal conflicts played out in public.
By late July 2026, the AfD climbed to first place in nationwide polling at 27%, while the CDU/CSU alliance slipped to 21%. Merz's approval rating stood at just 15%. For the first time, the AfD also outpaced the conservatives in public assessment of its ability to solve the country's problems.
This marks a critical threshold. Previously, voters might support the AfD emotionally while still viewing the CDU as a more competent governing force. Now, the radicals are beginning to win the contest over perceived governance capacity as well.
At the party convention in Erfurt on July 4, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla were re-elected as co-chairs. Weidel received roughly 81% of the vote, and Chrupalla secured 70%. Party leadership openly declared its strategy to capture power in the states first before launching a bid for the federal government. National polls at the time placed the AfD as high as 29%, compared to approximately 22% for the CDU/CSU.
Tellingly, the mass protests involving thousands of demonstrators against the convention failed to weaken the party. Instead, they helped project a familiar narrative to its base: the AfD is surrounded by police, opponents, and hostile elites, yet continues its march toward power.
The party has learned to turn resistance into validation of its own message.
Banning the AfD: A Legal Weapon with Political Recoil
Amid the party's rise, calls to initiate ban proceedings are growing louder.
Germany's Basic Law permits banning a political party if it seeks to undermine the free democratic basic order or endanger the existence of the Federal Republic. The Bundestag, the Bundesrat, or the Federal Government can petition the Federal Constitutional Court. The decision rests solely with the court.
However, the legal bar is exceptionally high. In 2017, the Constitutional Court declined to ban the National Democratic Party of Germany, even while deeming its goals unconstitutional. The court ruled that the party lacked any real capacity to realize its ambitions. The court itself described banning a party as the sharpest, yet most double-edged, weapon of democracy.
With the AfD, the situation is far more complex. It is not a marginal organization, but the largest opposition party, backed by millions of voters, 150 members of the Bundestag, and strong caucuses across state parliaments.
In 2025, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the AfD as a proven right-wing extremist organization. The designation relied on a report spanning roughly 1,100 pages detailing statements and actions by party officials. However, in February 2026, the Cologne Administrative Court temporarily enjoined the agency from using this classification pending the conclusion of the main proceedings.
The court noted serious suspicions of unconstitutional activity by individual figures and factions within the AfD, but considered it unproven that these characteristics applied to the entire party.
Attempting a ban carries immense risk. A successful ruling might remove the AfD from the legal political arena, but it would not eliminate the root causes of its popularity. A failed attempt would result in a triumph for the party. Weidel would be able to claim that the state tried to destroy the opposition through legal maneuvering and lost.
Even launching the procedure risks mobilizing an electorate that already perceives state institutions as politically biased.
A ban could become necessary if concrete actions against the constitutional order are proven. But deploying it as a substitute for political strategy is an admission that democratic parties can no longer defeat the AfD at the ballot box.
Not Meloni: Why Power Will Not Necessarily Moderate the AfD
Advocates of pragmatic engagement with the Alternative point to Italy. Giorgia Meloni took power as the leader of a party with post-fascist roots, yet upon forming a government, she maintained NATO membership, sustained support for Ukraine, and cultivated constructive relations with the European Union.
From this, analysts infer a general rule: responsibility moderates radicals.
However, no automatic law exists here.
Meloni built her strategy on international legitimization. She needed to convince markets, Brussels, and Washington that Italy would remain a predictable partner. The AfD is moving in the opposite direction. Its internal balance of power is shifting toward Björn Höcke and the ethno-nationalist wing, while moderate leaders have either exited the party or lost influence.
Furthermore, the AfD electorate explicitly votes against compromise. Rapid moderation after gaining power could sever the party's link with its core supporters.
In its federal platform, the AfD advocated an immediate end to sanctions against Russia, a halt to weapons deliveries to Ukraine, neutral status for Ukraine outside the EU and NATO, and a stop to further eastward expansion of Western structures.
For Germany, this is no minor foreign policy adjustment. The Federal Republic is the EU's largest economy, NATO's primary logistical hub, and one of Ukraine's leading European donors. Even participation by the AfD in a federal government could block sanction packages, military shipments, joint European borrowing, and deeper defense integration.
Europe can adapt to a Hungary that slows down decisions without dictating the overall system. Germany carries entirely different weight. A shift in Berlin could alter the balance of power across the continent.
Who Benefits from "Normalization"
The primary external beneficiary of the AfD's rise remains Russia.
The party demands the removal of sanctions, the restoration of economic ties, and an end to military aid for Ukraine. Its success intensifies pressure on the German government and complicates long-term planning to support Kyiv.
Yet reducing the AfD to a "Russian project" would be a mistake. External influence can amplify existing fractures, but it cannot manufacture tens of percentage points in voter support out of thin air.
The AfD is growing because the German political system itself generates the demand for it.
Businesses are dissatisfied with energy costs, taxation, and red tape. Workers fear deindustrialization. The eastern states feel undervalued. Portions of the middle class are frustrated by migration policy and cultural shifts. Young people consume political information through short, emotional videos where centrist language almost always loses out to radical rhetoric.
Studies of TikTok content during the 2025 election cycle show that algorithmic environments rewarded negative emotions, hostility toward political opponents, and polarizing messaging. Parties on the outer fringes utilized this style more frequently and captured higher engagement as a result.
The AfD does not necessarily possess superior digital technology. It possesses the ideal product for the digital medium: short, conflict-driven, emotional, and structured around a stark division between "us" and "them."
The government responds with policy papers. The AfD responds with the image of an enemy.
Three Scenarios Following September 6
Scenario One: The AfD wins an absolute majority and forms the government of Saxony-Anhalt independently. This represents the most radical outcome. The party secures the minister-presidency, control over state ministries, and representation in the Bundesrat.
Scenario Two: The party falls short of an absolute majority, yet no stable coalition can be formed without it. The remaining parties construct a fragile minority government or a broad alliance stretching from the CDU to the Left Party. Such a cabinet would be weak, internally fractured, and dependent on ad hoc voting alliances. The AfD would remain in opposition, but gain the narrative that the election winner was wrongfully excluded from power.
Scenario Three: A portion of CDU lawmakers or other parties supports individual AfD initiatives without entering a formal coalition. The "firewall" crumbles not through a single public pact, but through a sequence of parliamentary votes. This gradual process is the most probable, as it allows politicians to assert that formal cooperation does not exist.
The AfD wins under all three scenarios.
In power, it breaks its institutional isolation. In opposition as the largest force, it exploits its rivals' instability. In situational collaboration, it steadily erodes the taboo.
That is why the elections in Saxony-Anhalt could mark the point of no return for German politics.
Germany Is Not Losing to the AfD - It Is Losing to Itself
The German state possesses ample legal, financial, and informational resources to counter political extremism. Yet no ministry can replace trust, no court proceeding generates economic growth, and no coalition formula restores a citizen's sense of control over their own life.
The AfD is strong not because it offers a compelling vision of the future. Its economic program is internally contradictory, its foreign policy threatens Germany's own national interests, and its radical migration rhetoric collides with constitutional, demographic, and operational realities.
The party is strong because its opponents have lost the ability to explain why society should bear the costs of change.
Why are high energy costs necessary for strategic independence? Why does supporting Ukraine serve German interests? How will the industrial base be preserved? How does the state intend to manage migration without dismantling the rule of law? Why does the East still feel like a periphery 36 years after unification? Who bears responsibility for the missteps of recent decades?
As long as these questions are answered with bureaucratic formulas, the AfD will answer them with slogans - and win.
The "firewall" may keep Weidel and Chrupalla out of federal government for a few more years. But a wall backed by ineffective policy gradually ceases to protect democracy, becoming instead a monument to its powerlessness.
Saxony-Anhalt could prove to be the first crack. Other states, the Bundesrat, municipal authorities, and federal institutions will follow.
The primary danger for Germany is not that radicals will one day storm into power. They may enter quite legally - through elections, coalition mathematics, and public exhaustion.
It will then become clear that German democracy was not destroyed by a sudden assault, but by years of political complacency, economic stagnation, and the ruling center's failure to listen to a country it believed was safely secure.