Sometimes you can see better from afar. I find this especially true when it comes to observing the role your native country has on you – and evaluating events back home.
As a German journalist, I am currently in Nashville for two fantastic months thanks to a scholarship for young journalists and am embedded in The Tennessean to experience American journalistic culture.
So when elections recently took place in two states in the former communist East Germany, I watched from a distance. The results came as no surprise, but they still shocked me: the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, was very successful in both states.
Extremism persists despite lessons from World War II
Less than eight decades after the Allied Forces put an end to Nazi Germany, these results fill me with shame as a German. When I explained the developments to my American colleagues, I couldn’t help but feel guilty by association, even though no one had suggested it to me. It was just a feeling I had, even though I wasn’t eligible to vote.
The crucial phrase “never again” is often heard in German politics and society, referring to the lessons learned from the horrific crime of the Holocaust, committed by Nazi Germany. But the phrase is becoming increasingly hollow as the AfD rises.
In Thuringia, the AfD had its best statewide performance ever with almost 33% of the vote. The party came first because no other traditional party had more votes – even though the Thuringian state branch is classified as “extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. In Saxony, the AfD received 31% of the vote.
Interestingly, the newly founded far-left party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance also had a very successful evening, winning 16% of the votes in Thuringia and 12% in Saxony.
This problem is not limited to eastern Germany
Only about 7% of all Germans were eligible to vote in these two state elections. But it would be a mistake to – once again – look down on the former East of Germany and classify the problem of rising extremism as “an eastern problem,” as many Germans in the western part of the country like to do.
Germans should rather see this as a warning sign and a trend that predicts a development that could engulf the entire country. The AfD is popular throughout the country and we as a nation must address this problem.
The traditional parties must win back voters – not by copying the extremists’ agenda, but by finding appropriate policies to combat the growing economic and social divide and by investing heavily in education and equal opportunities for young people.
And with all due respect for the right to vote: even if voters may be dissatisfied with their current politicians, they should pull themselves together and realize that voting for a far-right party is not an acceptable solution.
Angela Gruber is a German journalist and reporter affiliated with The Tennessean in Nashville, as a recipient of the Arthur F. Burns Scholarship for international journalists. She works for The mirror in Hamburg, Germany. Call her at (615) 364-4325 or email her at angela.gruber@spiegel.de.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Germany’s election of extremists is a warning to democracies worldwide
