Far-right AfD surges in eastern Germany as CDU leadership falters

The German far-right Alternative for Germany party, known as the AfD, is heading into a regional election on Sunday positioned to achieve something the country has not seen since the Nazi era: a far-right party winning control of a state government. The breakthrough is happening in eastern Germany, a region that Angela Merkel and her successor Friedrich Merz, both leaders of the Christian Democratic Union, have failed to hold. The shift represents a fundamental rupture in German politics—one that analysts and minority communities across the country are watching with genuine alarm.

The AfD's rise in the east has been building for years, but the scale of support now visible in polling suggests a qualitative change. Voters in these regions, many still processing the economic and social dislocations that followed German reunification, have increasingly turned away from the centrist consensus that has governed the country. The CDU, which once held these territories as its base, has watched its grip loosen steadily. Merkel's long tenure as chancellor did not arrest the trend; Merz, who took over the party leadership more recently, appears unable to reverse it either. The result is a political landscape in eastern Germany that looks fundamentally different from the west.

What makes this moment particularly sharp is not just the AfD's electoral strength but what it signals about the party's normalization in German political life. The AfD has been willing to target even iconic German institutions in its campaign messaging. The Bauhaus school, one of the most celebrated achievements of twentieth-century German culture, has become a subject of the party's political attacks ahead of the election. This willingness to challenge the symbolic foundations of postwar German identity suggests a party that no longer feels constrained by the historical weight that has traditionally limited far-right movements in the country.

Minority communities in Germany are responding to the AfD's surge with fear that extends beyond the immediate election. Advocates and community leaders have begun warning that a far-right victory in a state election could serve as a proof of concept—evidence that such a party can win power through democratic means and, in doing so, embolden similar movements across the country and beyond. The concern is not abstract. A successful AfD state government would have real power over police, education, and social services in ways that could directly affect the lives of immigrants, religious minorities, and other vulnerable populations.

The political establishment's response has been constrained by the mathematics of the situation. Merz and the CDU face a scenario in which they may lose the election regardless of the final vote count. If the AfD wins outright, the loss is obvious. But even if the CDU finishes first in raw votes, the party has committed to refusing any coalition with the AfD, which means governing will require partnerships with other parties that may themselves be weakened by the AfD's gains. The result is a kind of political checkmate in which the traditional center loses its ability to shape outcomes, even in victory.

What happens after Sunday remains uncertain, but the trajectory is clear. The AfD has moved from the margins of German politics to a position where it can plausibly claim to represent the interests of a significant portion of the electorate. Whether this represents a temporary surge or a permanent realignment of German politics—whether this is, as some observers have suggested, just the beginning—will depend on what happens next in other regions and in national politics. For now, Germany is entering territory it has not occupied in nearly a century, and the country's political class appears to have few tools to reverse the direction.