Breaking the German Firewall?

The only realistic way out of isolation for the AfD is winning a statewide majority in this year's election

This year, the stakes are high for the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Five out of sixteen federal states are heading to the polls in 2026. More than 16 million citizens are entitled to elect the parliaments of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and Saxony-Anhalt. With this, 21 out of 69 votes in the Bundesrat — the federal chamber representing state governments, and one of the more powerful upper houses in Europe — could shift. About half of all federal laws require Bundesrat approval, and it can fully block government plans or proposed constitutional changes or EU treaty ratifications. For the first time ever, the party of Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla might top some states.

There is, however, one catch: it will need an absolute majority if it wants to govern. Thirteen years after the AfD’s founding, there are no signs of an imminent fall of the so-called ‘firewall’. Germany’s version of a cordon sanitaire has become a quasi-state religion of the Federal Republic, with regular mass exorcism rituals. For the AfD, the devil incarnate, there is no alternative but to try and jump over it.

Just two weeks ago, a roll call in the European Parliament provided yet another example of this political satanic panic. By a margin of just ten votes, the deputies in Strasbourg successfully pushed through a resolution which effectively froze the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement, which would have eliminated 90% of tariffs between the EU and South America’s Mercosur trade bloc. This was met by stiff resistance from European farmers and their party representatives. The AfD has had a mixed (and internally divided) position on protectionism more generally, but for farmers it has usually emphasised the importance of ‘food security’. Yet what was noteworthy was not the AfD’s position, but the fact that a majority of the deputies of the Green Party found themselves on the same side as nearly all deputies of the AfD. The Greens’ own objections to the deal were, of course, logically coherent, given the diverging environmental and welfare standards between the two trade blocs. In almost any other country, this event would not have resulted in any comment whatsoever. Yet, soon after this event, one of the Green MEPs voting in favour, Erik Marquardt, gave Der Spiegel an extended self-critique: ‘It was a mistake that this vote received this kind of a majority. We will do our part to ensure that this is avoided in the future, and we expect the other political groups, from the left to the conservatives, to do their part as well.’ The sacrifice of ideological coherence or loyalty to constituency at the altar of the firewall is now the expectation in Germany.

Just one year before, he did his part as one of many watchmen of the firewall. On 22 January 2025, an Afghan asylum seeker stabbed five people in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, leaving two people dead just four weeks before the early Federal Election. A week later, then-opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) found the opportunity for a deal with the devil: together with the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), Merz successfully pushed through a non-binding Bundestag resolution calling for stricter immigration policies — supported also by the AfD. Hours later, Antifa attacks on local CDU branches across the country followed. Members of the party were assaulted during canvassing; thousands attended demonstrations against the vote nationwide. (It is worth noting that Antifa, indirectly, but to a greater extent than elsewhere in Europe, are state-backed via grants to NGOs combating ‘racism, antisemitism, and right-wing extremism’.)

This was not the first time such a story played out after tentative cooperation between the CDU and AfD. In February 2020, after the AfD and CDU in Thuringia had together elected state FDP leader Thomas Kemmerich as Chief Minister, the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, called for ‘undoing’ the result. Kemmerich resigned three days later, after numerous threats, violent attacks on his family and FDP members, and a threat of extending the cordon sanitaire unto his party. In March, the state CDU caved to the pressure and decided to instead prop up Bodo Ramelow from the post-communist Die Linke — a longtime enemy of the Union parties — by abstaining from the vote for Chief Minister in the third round. This was despite a 2018 CDU resolution to ban coalitions, ‘and similar forms of cooperation’, with both the AfD and Die Linke.

Is this panic justified? Without a doubt, there are many reasons to view the AfD with some scepticism: be it its prominent figures’ embarrassingly submissive stance towards foreign actors like Russia or the MAGA movement, their outright addiction to tasteless provocation, and the constant infighting and chaos created by the simple fact that its members range all the way from Reform UK-type moderates to hardline nationalists and statists. But for the people who built the firewall, the very existence of the party itself is a threat. The AfD’s actual positions or controversies don’t matter. For the left, the reason for this is obvious: any force that dares to threaten the de facto ‘antifascist’ consensus that replaced the broader ‘anti-totalitarian’ one after a decades-long power grab is an existential challenge.

For the CDU and CSU, it’s more a matter of political survival. Under the leadership of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in the 1950s, the Union was able to dominate the right within the post-war consensus thanks to conservative social policy, the postwar economic boom, the containment of the more moderate alternative right-wing parties through cooperation, and the isolation of the more radical ones (like the banned Socialist Reich Party). Since the 1960s, no force to the right of the CDU and CSU could threaten its dominant position. All later competition quickly faded into obscurity, be it the early incarnation of the NPD (New Democratic Party, now Die Heimat, ‘The Homeland’) in the late 1960s or Die Republikaner in the early 1990s. A mix of a cross-party boycott, targeted political and domestic intelligence measures, a subsequent self-radicalisation, and tactically-motivated policy shifts from the mainstream parties ensured the strategy’s continued success.

All this changed under Merkel. Prior to the AfD’s founding in 2013, she had declared the Eurozone bailout as a measure ‘without an alternative’. The AfD cautiously tried to challenge that notion, campaigning to leave the Eurozone. With a reputation of a ‘professor’s party’, it was much harder to label as ‘extreme’ than previous attempts at a right-wing alternative to the CDU and CSU. Its most radical policies were to support traditional families, introduce a flat tax, improve the legal immigration system, and allow asylum seekers to seek legal employment. The AfD’s first leader, Bernd Lucke, made it clear that former members of the NPD and similar parties were not welcome in his party. But as soon as Lucke also made it clear that he wouldn’t turn away those considering voting for the NPD, all hell broke loose: ‘Basically, it’s good if someone votes for us and not for the NPD’, he said. Again: in virtually any other country this statement would hardly be worthy of comment. But in Germany, that alone was enough for the CDU to exclude the possibility of any cooperation.

Despite not yet entering the Bundestag in the Federal Election that year, winning only 4.7% of the vote (below the 5% threshold), the AfD nonetheless took enough of the CDU and CSU vote share to deny Merkel an absolute majority. To one of the more prominent CDU advisors at the time, Matthias Jung, the AfD’s rise seemed like a chance to credibly and firmly establish the CDU in the political centre and prevent centre-left majorities. Four years later, with the refugee crisis looming and its effects in full swing, this strategy had backfired spectacularly. In 2017, the CDU and CSU lost a fifth of their 2013 vote share and fell to a then-record low of 32.9%. The AfD was now the third-largest party in the Bundestag with 12.6% of the vote. According to a late Infratest Dimap poll, around one million former CDU and CSU voters switched to the AfD. By that point, Lucke had left the party, considering that it had become too radical. But for the Union, the AfD’s actual policies and personnel didn’t matter. The loss of a monopoly on right-wing voters was reason enough to help build the firewall.

Despite giving up her leadership after the 2017 election in an attempt to calm the more conservative party members, Merkel remained in her seat as Chancellor until 2021. By then, she oversaw her cabinet’s intensified efforts at containing the new force on the right — this time by state means. After the installation of her trusted party colleague Thomas Haldenwang as the director of Germany’s national domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the AfD became the subject of nationwide surveillance as a ‘suspected radicalisation case’ in 2021. The party’s official think-tank, Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, found itself regularly excluded from state funds thanks to conveniently-updated legal loopholes. On the other hand, Germany’s major ‘civil society’ charity scheme, Demokratie leben (‘living democracy’), has had its budget quadrupled since the AfD entered the Bundestag.

Friedrich Merz tried a slightly more subtle approach after taking over as opposition leader in 2022. With a nominally stricter course on illegal immigration — and even safe-edgy dogwhistles (like ‘little Pashas’) against antisocial immigrant students! — his goal was to ‘halve’ the AfD. But this was a classic case of too little, too late. According to a 2025 Infratest late poll, 54% of all respondents blamed the CDU and CSU for the numbers of asylum seekers being too high. This compared to only 12% each placing blame on the SPD and the Greens. In the end, even his immigration resolution did little more than provoke the anger of the left. The CDU and CSU, despite winning the Federal Election in 2025, still had their second-worst result in history, garnering just 28.5% of the vote. Comparing the polls before and after the Aschaffenburg stabbing, neither the Union parties nor the AfD saw a significant change in support: both oscillated around 30% and 20%, respectively, depending on the pollster.

Meanwhile, Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), oversaw even stricter measures against the AfD. Just days before leaving office, the BfV tried to designate the AfD as an ‘activity with a proven extremist agenda’, only to retract this after a lawsuit by the party was filed. This reclassification enabled greater surveillance measures and sanctions against members in the civil service. Four state chapters are already designated as such: Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, and the aforementioned Saxony-Anhalt. With this escalation, it made no sense to pander to the right anymore. In October, now serving as Chancellor in a coalition with the SPD, Merz called the AfD his ‘primary opponent’, and denounced the idea of there being potential opportunities from breaking the firewall as a ‘false narrative’.

Unsurprisingly, this has deepened CDU’s dependence on the far-left. Just a few weeks ago, a group of under-35 deputies threatened a veto on a coalition bill increasing the pension budget by more than €115 billion in the 2030s. In the end, Die Linke decided to abstain to help the coalition secure a majority, throwing Merz a lifeline. But this was not the first time Die Linke chose to help Merz. After Merz initially failed to secure a majority for his election in May — a historic first — Die Linke backed an amendment to the Bundestag rules of order to allow a second attempt on the same day. Meanwhile, in Saxony and Thuringia, CDU-led minority cabinets have been depending on Die Linke’s backing for months. Constellations like these are in addition to well-established coalitions with the more mainstream left-wing parties, i.e., the SPD and the Greens — neither of which, needless to say, would accept any kind of cooperation with the AfD on their coalition partner’s part.

The long-term effects of Merkel‘s centrist drift also makes breaking the firewall a hard sell to the Union’s remaining voters. In an Insa poll for the magazine Cicero in October, 45% of CDU voters claimed that the cooperation of any other party with the AfD would weaken democracy in Germany, while only 23% said the opposite. Even those voting for the FDP and Die Linke’s populist split-off BSW (both no longer in the Bundestag) turned out to be more AfD-friendly! For the Union parties, the risk of alienating their remaining voters and potentially losing the nominal power they obtain from forming coalitions with the left-wing parties outweighs any political benefit. There is now not even a rational reason to drop the firewall. When combined with all the efforts to eliminate the AfD from the political competition by state means and the mutual animosity this has obviously caused, the firewall seems taller and safer than ever.

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The only way to break through the firewall for the AfD is to win a majority in one of the five state parliaments in this year’s elections. Three of them — Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Berlin — can easily be crossed out as potential targets. The elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate will very likely result in established majority constellations, be it CDU and Greens in Stuttgart, or SPD and CDU in Mainz. In traditionally left-wing Berlin, Die Linke, the Greens, and the SPD will most probably gather a sufficient majority to dictate the terms of any prospective coalition.

In the two other states, however, the AfD’s chances are far better. In Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, the latest Infratest poll has the AfD moderate Leif-Erik Holm ahead of the competition with 35% of the vote. The ruling SPD, led by former federal minister of family affairs and incumbent Chief Minister Manuela Schwesig, is trailing on 25%. The CDU follows with a mere 13%, just ahead of the SPD’s junior partner, Die Linke, with 12%, and the BSW with 6%. But even with the latter failing to surpass the necessary 5% threshold, winning an outright majority here will be tough for the AfD. On Tuesday, CDU leader Daniel Peters made it clear that a minority government akin to the ones in Saxony and Thuringia is an option.

The state with the best prospects for the AfD is Saxony-Anhalt. The Saxony-Anhalt chapter — ironically one of the few designated as ‘activity with a proven extremist agenda’ — is led by Ulrich Siegmund, who has gathered huge domestic and international attention for his TikTok and online profile, as well as recent controversial statements (including on the Holocaust). This chapter was actually the first to reach 40% in an October Insa poll, and fell only by one percentage point in the January poll. The ruling CDU of the newly-designated Chief Minister Sven Schulze lags far behind, on 26%, followed by Die Linke on 11%. The SPD is on 8%, and BSW is on 6%. Should they lose any more support, a majority for the AfD would be secured. In a historic first, the party would have a chance to govern a state — and would also obtain four votes in the Federal Council.

But this key election is seven months away — and the prospect of actually being in charge doesn’t seem to terrify only the supporters of the firewall. Only in December, former State General Secretary Jan Wenzel Schmidt was suspended over allegations of fictitious employment and benefitting from dubious business deals. Sources within the AfD federal leadership told the online outlet Table Media that they have doubts whether Siegmund and his people are ready for government. Some said that he is a ‘poster boy’ who ‘isn‘t the sharpest tool in the shed’. Some even claimed that it would be an ‘embarrassment’ to rule for even half a year. With only a potentially slim majority in the Saxony-Anhalt parliament, this would give more radical figures the power to blackmail the rest. ‘It would drag us down in the nationwide polls. That would be the worst-case scenario.’

Looking at history, though, there might be no other way for the AfD to establish itself than through embarrassment. In December 1985, the emerging Greens entered the Hesse state government with the SPD for the first time, with the 37-year-old Joschka Fischer becoming environment minister. Two years before, they had entered the Bundestag for the first time. Back then, the Green Party was no less chaotic than the AfD is today: eco-conservatives, radical socialists, and various civil rights movements that emerged from the student protest movement of the 1960s competed for influence within the party. Several major figures embraced far-left terror apologia, and some members even openly promoted paedophilia, plaguing its public image decades after. After just fourteen months of tumultuous co-governance, Fischer was sacked after a conflict over a local nuclear power plant.

Fischer’s sacking didn’t prevent the rise of the Green Party. In fact, with its cabinet breakthrough, it was able to establish numerous networks within the civil service and the political class as well, including the early ‘Pizza connection’ coalition with future major leaders of the then less-than-friendly CDU. Thirteen years after his first attempt at governing, Fischer would become Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first federal SPD-Green coalition under Gerhard Schröder. Now, with many of its more radical figures out of sight, barely anyone can imagine the nation’s political landscape without the Greens.

There’s no reason to believe that the AfD — which has far greater support base than the Greens during their ‘growing pains’ — should be any different. Once in charge, only a blatant disregard of the constitution or a refusal to follow federal laws would force a cabinet out by federal means. A ban, already very unlikely, would become politically impossible. Should the AfD still fail in state governments, as its federal leadership fears, it will still be able to gain crucial experience and develop a blueprint for future professionalisation, including a cause to eliminate those responsible for its failure and further isolation. Should it survive, it will put the legitimacy and political viability of the ‘firewall’ into serious doubt — even if this takes several years. With the AfD in the Bundesrat, links to civil service, and on supervisory boards of crucial institutions like the public media, the CDU and the CSU’s love-affair with the left, without having to deliver on its promises, will gradually lose any justification. Just like the Euro bailout for Merkel, there will be no other alternative for the Union to make amends if it wants to stay in power, even if only to put pressure on its preferred left-wing partners.

Or, in other words: Once the ‘devil’ has jumped through the firewall, there’s no downside to tearing it down.

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This article was written by Kuba Kruszakin, an editor of Junge Freiheit, a German conservative weekly, and Pimlico Journal contributor. Have a pitch? Send it to submissions@pimlicojournal.co.uk.

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