Commentary: Germany has gotten more conservative, not more radical

For the first time since the Nazi era, a far-right party made a significant political breakthrough in Germany. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won a regional election this month in the state of Thuringia and came second in neighboring Saxony. Visceral angst for democracy has befallen the country, but all is not as bleak as it seems.

As the rise of the far right is hogging the limelight, it obscures the bigger picture: German society hasn’t become more radical. It’s become more conservative. For years, moderates have failed to offer credible center-right politics on the ballot, but that may be about to change. Expect German politics to shift right, though not as far as many fear.

Domestic and international media have read the rise of the AfD as a peculiarity of the former East Germany, because that’s where both Thuringia and Saxony are and where Brandenburg is — a state the AfD is also predicted to win when it holds its elections on Sept. 22. But eastern Germany is no radical outlier. It’s the canary in the coal mine, a region that craves stability, having lost a quarter of its population since German reunification. It’s exposed to the same forces that drive voters to the right in countries like France or Italy. Income and wealth are still lower than in the former West Germany.

In fact, economic anxiety over things like the cost of living and housing is felt by the majority of Germans, according to a recent study. These issues were closely followed by immigration, which just over half of both West and East Germans named as a concern.

Public safety is also a growing issue, especially for women, as another survey found. This isn’t an irrational fear. Violent crime reached a record high last year and more than a third of all crime suspects were foreigners, which links public safety to immigration.

As early as 2018, a government-commissioned report found that 90% of the rise in violent crime seen in the state of Lower Saxony was indeed attributable to young male migrants. Yet neither then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) nor their coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), pushed to control immigration. Merkel allowed more than 1 million asylum seekers into the country in 2015/2016. Her successor Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s left-leaning coalition of SPD, Greens and Free Liberals (FDP) oversaw an even larger influx of people in 2022.

Yet the majority of the public is conservative on immigration. In a survey this month, more than three-quarters of German respondents demanded a U-turn on an asylum policy that all the main political parties are associated with. This benefits the new anti-immigration parties, which is why the AfD is now polling in second place, behind the conservatives but ahead of the governing groups.

Many German voters also blame centrists for the fact that the German economy is “stuck in crisis,” as the Ifo Institute for Economic Research put it. To name just two examples of economic self-harm: Merkel’s government accelerated the end of nuclear power, which once provided a third of electricity. Now Germans face some of the highest electricity prices for consumers in the world. And neither she nor Scholz opposed the deeply unpopular decision by the European Union to ban the sale of traditional combustion engine cars from 2035, spelling deep trouble for Germany’s iconic car industry.

Certainties have been eroded at every level, a trend exacerbated by war in Ukraine and the pandemic. Young people especially worry that they might not be able to enjoy the standards of accommodation, public safety and prosperity their parents had. Many want the government to halt the social and economic trends of recent years, and their positions have shifted right in accordance. A study of 14-to-29-year-olds suggested that more than half of them think the state is doing more for refugees than its own people. The study predicted an AfD win in this demographic — and that’s what happened in Thuringia, where the party won the under-30 vote with 35%.

Germans of all ages have lost faith in the established parties. In one recent survey, 77% of East Germans said they didn’t think the state was able to fulfill its responsibilities, and 69% of West Germans agreed. This loss of trust is what drives people to the political fringes in search of change.

Yet worried people are also risk-averse. A centrist party that can deliver a stable economy and control immigration will gain voters back from the untested AfD. Take Germany’s car industry. CDU leader Friedrich Merz has called for an end to the unpopular and damaging 2035 ban on combustion-engine sales because “we can’t decide in politics which technology will be the right technology to preserve prosperity and protect our climate in 10, 15 or 20 years,” without veering into the extreme demand to abandon all existing climate agreements that the AfD has called for.

Similarly, immigration isn’t a zero-sum game. As former British Prime Minister Tony Blair put it in his new book On Leadership, “Most people can accept that a certain level and type of immigration is essential, but they worry when they think the whole system is broken.” It’s about exercising control over who is in the country rather than branding immigration as “the mother of all crises,” as Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke does.

It seems German centrists are finally beginning to listen. A spate of recent terror attacks, the historic AfD victories and the gloomy news that car giant Volkswagen AG is considering factory closures in its home country for the first time, have all served as a belated wake-up call. Scholz’s government has announced that it wants tougher measures on immigration and public safety, for instance. Of course, it may be too little too late: A survey this month suggested that only 15% of voters are happy with the government’s work.

The survey also showed, however, that the Christian Democrats were beginning to pick up votes — and that they would currently win a national election with 33% — nearly twice as much as the AfD would get. Merz, who is keen to distance the CDU from his predecessor Merkel and reset it as a traditional conservative party, has called for stronger measures on immigration and for a rethink on economic policy. If he can pull this off and assemble a team of competent and authentic leaders, his party should draw voters back from the margins.

If the centrists want to stabilize German politics, they have to ensure the political spectrum is balanced. Merkel pulled the conservatives so far to the center that she left a huge power vacuum to the right. Given that the CDU/CSU dominated West German postwar politics for half a century, almost always gaining more than 40% of the vote, the onus is on them to move toward their former votership.

Similarly, the SPD was once the party of workers. In the European elections in June, however, the AfD took that role, winning in this demographic with 33%. Here, too, the question should be what centrists can do to win their core voters back, not what those voters have done wrong.

In light of the tumult of recent years, many Germans are looking for more conservative options on the ballot. It’s up to the centrists to provide them.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and journalist. Her latest book is Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany.

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