I’d call that a reasonable conservative program, not Nazi, nor the death rattle of democracy. Yet it must be admitted that the AfD frequently gives its critics plenty of ammunition needed to fire away. For example, one of the founders of the AfD, Alexander Gauland, told a party gathering in 2018 that the 12 years of Nazi rule from 1933 to 1945 were “mere bird s*** in over a thousand years of successful German history.” After fouling his own nest, some in the party leadership distanced themselves from him, but he remains an important figure in the AfD. Two years later, in 2020, the party toughened up a bit, dumping its parliamentary spokesman, Christian Lueth, who announced he was a fascist. Although not decked out in Stormtrooper gear, Lueth wondered aloud if it might be better if migrants from Africa and Asia pouring across German borders might be shot or gassed. 

Lueth let bubble to the surface the widespread anger among Germans not wanting to go down Hitler’s road again, yet fed up with what seemed like an invasion. More than a million people seeking asylum were welcomed into the country by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her Christian Democratic Union, along with the Social Democrats, which also embraced open borders, seemed oblivious to what would become a major backlash. The popularity of the AfD surged, picking up support across the political spectrum. Or as Lueth said, channeling Lenin, “The worse things get for Germany, the better for the AfD.”

Founded in 2013, the upstart party kicked off as a single-issue movement advocating Germany exit the Eurozone. Over the next few years, the party expanded its platform, embracing a strict immigration policy and unequivocally declaring “Islam does not belong in Germany.” The party also pushed for bringing back nuclear energy and resuming gas imports with a friendlier attitude toward Russia. This paid off. In the 2017 national election, the AfD won 12.6% of the vote, giving it 94 seats in parliament and making it Germany’s third-largest party. In 2025, it increased its share of the vote to almost 20%, thus moving up to the second spot. 

Successive leadership changes since gaining voter support brought about infighting among the leadership, but the dust settled with the rapid rise of Alice Weidel to the top of the AfD as co-chair. She has done much to bolster the fortunes of the party. In 2025, she became the first AfD politician to run for chancellor, picking up 20% of the vote, almost double from the previous year’s election. She is also a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt. Tough to spin her free-market creds as neo-Nazi. 

Besides getting constantly interviewed and admired, Weidel is recognized by the public, talked about, and televised. She is now in the same league with the other two most powerful women in Europe: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and France’s former National Front leader, Marine Le Pen. A conservative triptych. Most importantly, Weidel has singularly shaped the AfD’s move toward its long-sought-after goal: Legitimacy. Suddenly, the party showered with hatred and labeled Nazi appears to be young, lively, sort of cool, and even normal — or at least close to normal. 

Weidel has said the government policy over the past 30 years of “saving the euro, saving refugees, saving the climate, [and] saving Ukrainians” has not saved Germany from economic stagnation, political turmoil, and government irresponsibility. At a party convention, she got a thunderous round of applause with a passionate appeal to nationalism: “Let us drape the entire country in black, red, and gold. Black, red, and gold — that is what we live. Those are our colors.” 

While nationalism is scorned by “citizen of the world” progressives as racist, narrow-minded, and xenophobic, the vast majority of people in every nation rally round their own flag, not the blue-and-white United Nations flag, nor the European Union’s “Ode to Joy.” Nationalism is an excellent way of ordering people’s everyday existence. There is nothing wrong with determining who counts as a member of a nation. All nation-states by definition exclude some groups of people while another group dominates the politics, culture, and territory inside its borders. 

The citizen of the world can and frequently does make a strong case for international order. But, too often, this citizen freaks out when the political winds blow right. Here’s one example from Thomas Klikauer from ZNetwork. He notes the AfD wants women to bear as many children as they can, which is “reminiscent of Hitler’s award for supplying his fascist Wehrmacht with fresh gun powder.” Shameful. Ludicrous. Klikauer adds that by “following the ideology of Hitler,” the AfD “fancies what it calls a more traditional image of the family” and “any other form of living cannot be imagined by the simple-minded AfD apparatchiks and their voters.”

What is simple-minded is Klikauer’s slander.

With respect to family values, the simple-minded AfD voter doesn’t seem bothered that Weidel has made no secret that she has been in a 20-year relationship with a woman. Add in a spice from The Other. Girlfriend is from Sri Lanka. They are raising two adopted children. Rather than being racist, sexist, and homophobic, it appears the AfD rank-and-file get a charge out of their leader stealing a page from the cosmopolitan/gender fluid playbook. Our correspondent at ZNetwork has a different — and sexist — take on it. He calls Weidel a “lesbian figurehead” and the “pretty face of German neofascism.”

The AfD’s appeal going beyond its hardcore right-wing base also plays havoc with a long-standing pledge between the mainstream parties to refuse any kind of coalition government with them. As CDU Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said, “We are world’s apart from that party.” But the problem is in his world, not the AfD’s. This strategy of what the mainstream power elite calls a “firewall,” isolating any party on the extreme right or extreme left, is an affront to democracy. 

A STATE ELECTION TESTS GERMANY’S FAR-RIGHT FIREWALL

A good test case for the AfD’s drive for power will arrive during a state election in Saxony-Anhalt. It is one of the states in eastern Germany where the AfD has always been strongest. A recent poll showed the party with 41% support over the CDU at 24%. The other parties — SPD, Greens, business-friendly Free Democrats, and Die Linke (The Left) — trail far behind. 

Populist uprisings and upheaval on the extreme left or right have had pretty good track records in Saxony-Anhalt dating back to 1517. This state is home to the Castle Church in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door. 

Bob Armstrong is a contributing writer to Thursday Review, an online magazine, and the author of a memoir, No Exit from Vietnam, Pen and Sword Books.