As in many other countries these days, Germany has witnessed a steady shift toward right-leaning, conservative principles and policies recently. The most recent polling in the country indicates that the right-wing AfD or Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland) is now the second-largest political party. This has the socialists feeling highly alarmed, as you might imagine. Protests against AfD and its policies have broken out in the streets and people are drawing comparisons between this modern movement and the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. The Associated Press predictably jumps on the bandwagon to join the socialists, interviewing one young woman who expresses her despair, claiming that she never thought she would live to see that day that such "inhuman ideas" would be pushed in the public square.
When Sabine Thonke joined a recent demonstration in Berlin against Germany’s far-right party, it was the first time in years she felt hopeful that the growing power of the extremists in her country could be stopped...
“I never thought such inhuman ideas would be gaining popularity in Germany again. I thought we had learned the lessons from our past,” Thonke said.
Many Germans believed their country had developed an immunity to nationalism and assertions of racial superiority after confronting the horrors of its Nazi past through education and laws to outlaw persecution.
So what are these "inhuman ideas" that Sabine Thonke is comparing to the Third Reich? For starters, the AfD is pushing back against increasing levels of inflation and rising prices. They are also calling for an end to the massive influx of foreign migrants that have been flooding Germany in recent years. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar to you.
The AP reminds us that AfD's support disproportionately comes from the eastern part of the country, formerly East Germany until the wall came down. That's the region where unemployment has been the highest and wages and standards of living have trailed behind the more prosperous western half of the country. So they would obviously be hit the hardest by inflation and price hikes. As for the opposition to mass migration, Germany has taken in hundreds of thousands of people in recent years, with most coming from Syria, Afghanistan, and Turkey. They've also taken in more than a million Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. Many of these people wind up being dumped in eastern Germany.
The AP refers to AfD's policies as being reminiscent of "nationalism and assertions of racial superiority." That plays nicely into the comparison to Nazis, but there is a reason that the party is surging in popularity. It's not because anyone misses Hitler. It's because Germany's socialist tendencies are causing problems similar to those being seen in the United States and elsewhere.
The Associated Press reports that protests broke out in several cities after it was reported that a proposal was made during a recent AfD party meeting involving a plan to deport at least a million migrants. (Again... stop me if you've heard this recently elsewhere.) People were waving signs reading Nie Wieder 1933! (Never again 1933.) In the United States, our socialists protest and call conservatives who want lower inflation and secure borders "fascists." In Germany, their hard left skips past the niceties and goes directly to Hitler comparisons. Perhaps we have more in common with our friends across the pond than we might have wanted to believe.
There are elections coming up this year in Germany. During the previous round, AfD made significant gains in the legislature. They are expected to expand even further this time, particularly in the eastern provinces. Perhaps a change is coming to Germany in the near future. But they'll need to drag the socialists kicking and screaming over the finish line to get there.
