A protest in Berlin last year against the AfD (Photo: Guy Smallman)
The Alternative For Germany (AfD) has made a historic breakthrough in a key state election in Saxony-Anhalt.
Exit polls on Sunday night showed the fascist party had topped the poll—and more than doubled its support in the state in east Germany.
If the AfD forms the next government, it will be the first time a far right party has been in office at the federal or state level since the Second World War.
The AfD was projected to be in first place on 44.5 percent—up from 20.8 percent in the state elections in 2021.
The Tory-like Christian Democratic Union (CDU) dropped to second place with 18.5 percent, down from 37.1 percent last time.
The left wing Die Linke party came third with 9.5 percent, down slightly from 11 percent, while the Greens saw their share of the vote rise slightly, from 5.9 to 9 percent.
Support for the Labour-type SPD, whose vote had already collapsed to historic lows in the last election, stayed at around 8 percent.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW)—a toxic version of the “economically left, socially right” trend in politics—was on 5 percent.
This election is a damning indictment of the parties of the political centre—and a sign of the deep crisis of the German state.
Chancellor (prime minister) Friedrich Merz heads a coalition of the CDU and SPD that is pushing austerity and rearmament and pandering to racism.
The AfD has grown out of the mainstream parties’ failures. The fascists have appealed to people disaffected with the system, while wrapping up their fake “anti-establishment” message with vile anti-migrant racism.
The AfD and racism are a problem across the whole of Germany. But it has found fertile ground in the former East Germany, where working class people faced deindustrialisation and mass unemployment.
Politicians relied on racism against migrant workers to deflect anger—and pushed through devastating neoliberal reforms in the 2000s.
Luiz is a socialist based in nearby Leipzig. “There was a sense of hopelessness when I spoke with some people in Sangerhausen,” he told Socialist Worker. “The population of the town is on the older side.
“Some said that they would be voting for the AfD, because there wasn’t an alternative on offer. They didn’t think there was any party with anything other than politics as normal to offer them,” Luiz said.
A defence of the political centre will not stop the AfD—it will only fuel its rise further.
Luiz was at a protest against the AfD in Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, on the eve of the election. “There were 15,000 people for a ‘democracy festival’ in the city centre,” he said.
“This was, of course, encouraging. But I think we have to stress that the response to the AfD needs to go beyond simply a defence of democratic norms.
“There are people in Saxony-Anhalt and other parts of the country who are in need—without employment, healthcare, housing and more.
“We have to, as the left, be able to offer them a better and different vision of the future. Simply appealing to democratic norms will not be enough.”
He added, “We always have to confront the fascists on the streets, whenever and wherever they try to organise. But we must take on austerity, militarisation, social cuts and all the other sick symptoms of the system.”
Die Linke made a surprise comeback in the federal elections last year. It was buoyed by a mass movement against fascism on the streets and it went viral online for taking on the AfD and attacking Merz for cooperating with the fascists.
But Die Linke has not always been able to present itself as an alternative.
Christine Buchholz is a co-founder of the Aufstehen gegen Rassismus (Stand Up Against Racism) campaign. She explained, “Die Linke addresses social problems, but it doesn’t take a sufficiently strong stance against the Merz government or the state government in Saxony-Anhalt.
“The lead candidate for Die Linke in Saxony-Anhalt, Eva von Angern, says she would support a CDU government to keep the AfD out.
“Yet the CDU-SPD-FDP state government—which includes the liberal Free Democratic Party—is a cause of the current predicament, just like the CDU-SPD federal government,
“Such pandering certainly weakens Die Linke. In Saxony-Anhalt, the left wing party has already tolerated an SPD-led minority government. In Thuringia and Saxony, there are specific agreements to support the respective CDU-led minority governments.
“In Berlin, the last government in which Die Linke participated did not implement the expropriation of the large housing corporations. It also participated in privatisations and deportations.
“Because of such experiences, many people do not perceive Die Linke as a credible anti-establishment party.”
Saxony-Anhalt should be a warning to the left—in Germany and elsewhere. “These results point up how serious a threat the AfD poses,” Luiz said.
There has to be more mass, militant anti-fascism—as we saw when 50,000 people blockaded and protested against the AfD conference in Erfurt in July.
Alongside building united opposition to fascism, there is an urgent need for struggle to show that there is an alternative to the failed politics of the centre.
On 21 September, members of the trade union IG Metall have called for a day of action and protests. This comes after the announcement last week that Volkswagen is threatening up to 100,000 workers with redundancy.
It is a chance to hit back not only at chancellor Friedrich Merz and his CDU-SPD coalition—but at the AfD too. The far right party has made significant inroads into trade unions. Around 19 percent of trade unionists have voted for the AfD in recent elections.
On 25 September, school students will stage the fourth national strike against the threat of the reintroduction of conscription.
Previous school strikes have seen up to 50,000 students take to the streets—demanding an end to the European drive for war and Germany’s complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
And on 26 September, there will be protests in at least 15 cities across Germany against cuts to social services proposed by Merz.
Anti-fascism and struggle from below against austerity, rearmament and racism can help push back the fascists.
Who are the Alternative for Germany? Vicious, racist and authoritarian
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) started in 2013 as an organisation made up of conservatives, fascists and right wing populists.
In the beginning, it was dominated by a Eurosceptic and neoliberal wing.
But from 2015 that leadership was replaced and its programme became more overtly racist.
The shocking success of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt this week is further proof of the growing influence of this faction within the party.
Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt, is an ally of Björn Höcke.
Höcke is the leader of a fascist faction within the AfD, known as “The Wing” (Der Flügel).
It was victorious at the far right party’s conference in 2022 and soon after started to set the agenda. Its control was consolidated further at the AfD’s most recent conference, in Erfurt in July this year.
Alice Weidel, co-chair of the AfD nationally, at one time wanted to expel Höcke and his allies from the party. But now she works openly with them.
And they’ve been able to operate in the party with impunity.
In November 2023, Siegmund attended a meeting in Potsdam, where members of the CDU and AfD met with Austrian far right activist Martin Sellner and other figures from the so-called “identitarian movement”.
They were there to discuss plans for “remigration”—a code word for the ethnic cleansing of all non-white people from Germany.
When the meeting became public, there was widespread backlash. Tens of thousands took to the streets in protests against the far right across Germany.
But Siegmund has since surrounded himself with people who were previously members of banned neo-Nazi organisations.
Four staffers in his inner circle were previously involved with the Homeland-Loyal German Youth (HDJ), a group modelled on the Hitler Youth.
And despite this organisation being banned—including by the AfD itself—Siegmund has declined to distance himself from it or its members.
“These are outstanding people,” he told Die Welt newspaper. “They have a spotless record. I’m not interested in what happened 20 or 25 years ago.”
Siegmund added that instead he would focus on “entirely different problems in this country.” It’s clear what for Siegmund is a “problem”—anyone or anything he doesn’t define as German.
He has pledged “deportation from minute one” for anyone in the state without legal status.
But that’s only one piece of a bigger attack on all migrants and refugees.
He’s planning to set up “Citizens’ patrols” and a “Remigration task force”.
And he wants a complete overhaul of the school system, one that prioritises what he calls a “patriotic cultural policy”.
He wants “more Bismarck, less Hitler” taught in German classrooms, meaning less on the Nazis and more Otto von Bismarck who oversaw the unification of Germany in 1871.
Funding for anti-racism initiatives in schools would be cut. Pride flags would be banned—even Bauhaus art and architecture would be off the table. Like the Nazis, the AfD sees it as culturally degenerate.
The AfD has come out of the election confident—and they’re looking to build up that momentum on the streets.
Why are young people voting for the AfD?
One of the most shocking statistics that has come out of the Saxony-Anhalt election is the number of young people who voted for the AfD.
Some 42 percent of 18-24 year olds cast their vote for the fascist party.
Left wing Die Linke came in a distant second—on 16 percent. And the Greens were in third, on 13 percent.
This cuts against the stereotype that it is only older people, especially in eastern states like Saxony-Anhalt, who are willing to vote for the AfD.
In part, this is down to the AfD cultivating an “anti‑establishment” image.
This taps into the widespread disillusionment with German society, something that younger people feel particularly strongly.
Luiz, a revolutionary socialist from nearby Leipzig, was in Sangerhausen, a town in Saxony-Anhalt, a week before the election for a protest against Elbit Systems.
“There were very few young people around,” he told Socialist Worker.
“And those who we spoke with talked about a lack of opportunities—and a desire to leave.”
Since 2008, the population of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt has dropped significantly.
People of working age—from 16-54—are leaving in their thousands to find work elsewhere.
The AfD is feeding on this feeling of disaffection.
And it’s being helped by the mainstream media. In August, Der Spiegel magazine put Ulrich Siegmund’s face on its front page, with the headline,
“The most dangerous man in Germany.”
Siegmund later used the page in his election campaign.
“If we’re going to hit back against the AfD, we need to build a movement of hope to turn the tide on despair,” Luiz said.
Confronting the AfD will require ripping off their “anti‑establishment” mask and exposing them for who they are—racists and no friends to working people, old or young.
