Reuters World News - Germany’s state elections and the rise of the far right

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

Impending elections in eastern states have pollsters projecting the far-right to take the most seats since the end of World War II. Join Reuters journalists in Berlin as they dig into the forces driving divisions among Germans. Plus, the political characters shaping the populist discussions. Please note this episode has been republished to re-insert a missing word. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About a week ago, the German city of Zollingen was celebrating its 650th anniversary. There was a festival in the Market Square, music was playing, when a 26-year-old man attacked the crowd with a knife, killing three people and injuring eight. Police say the man who carried out the murders was a Syrian asylum seeker. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. Crimes like these are sporadic and rare in Germany. Federal officials say there have been around a dozen Islamist-motivated attacks since the year 2000. But that hasn't stopped them from being seized upon by politicians ahead of key elections.

Three East German states go to vote this month. This weekend, voting will take place in the densely forested state of Turingia, as well as Saxony, which is home of old. German cities like Dresden and Leipzig. Later this month, Brandenburg, which surrounds the city of Berlin in the East, will also vote. And fears about immigration, crime, and safety could usher in the biggest representation of far-right candidates in a German parliament since the Nazis were in power. On this special episode of Reuters' World News, we take a look at what's driving anxiety

about the country's identity, and the unusual politicians who've seized upon populist sentiment, including Sara Wagen-Connect, a former communist who started her own party, that combines left-wing socialism with right-wing nationalism. And the far-right leader inside the Alternative for Germany Party, firebrand Bjorn Huyck, whose party the government has flagged as a possible threat to democracy. I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. Sarah Marsh and Thomas Eskrate are in our Berlin Bureau. They've been following the growth of these new political parties

and their appeal across Germany for the last few years. Sarah, Thomas, thanks for joining me today. It's great to be here. Happy to be here. The fears Germans are wrestling with, they're nuanced. There are divisions in the country that have lingered decades. after East and West Germany were reunified. An influx of asylum seekers, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, as well as an economy

that has been sluggish nationwide, has added to the discontent. As we were putting together this podcast, the German government said it has resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country. Now, Sarah, I want to start with the topic of migration. What can you tell us about the way Germans view this issue? So Germany ticking around a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East in the 2015-to-2016 migration crisis, and since then it's continued to take in a large amount of people entering the European Union illegally. And what we're seeing is people in Germany beginning to resent the burden on public services,

but also feeling wary about the large arrival of people with a different culture from a different sort of area. of the world, you've got to remember this is a relatively homogenous society compared to say Britain or France. So this is a kind of a new phenomenon for Germany. And in the last year the government of Chancellor Olaf Schultz has really tried to

it's had a two-pronged strategy basically towards migration. They've tried to restrict legal migration and increase sort of controls on the borders but at the same time make it a lot easier for people to arrive legally in Germany because Germany actually has a lack of skilled labour. So it's been a huge topic

in the last year for the government, but a lot of people still feel that it's not doing enough. And of course, these attacks that have been a couple in recent months, a couple of high-profile attacks like this. There was a policeman who was killed by an, I think it was an Afghan refugee just before the European elections. And they've really kind of heightened the unease in Germany with this issue. Why is it over the last decade or so that Germany has taken,

such a welcoming stance towards this influx of migrants? First of all, and Germany is one of the biggest countries in the European Union, and it's the largest by population, and it was one of the biggest economies, and so it was natural that it should be attractive as a destination to many migrants. And so what happened one evening effectively in 2015 was Angela Merkel simply took the decision to say, well, they're going to just come in because we're not going to be able to stop this in the long run. And many of them remain here to this day, and it has to be said, many are very well integrated, speak Germans, some of them have citizenship by now and voted in the last election.

That's part of the story. The other part of the story, though, is I think that Germans uniquely can say that their ancestors, their forbears, committed the worst crimes in the history of the world, the Holocaust. And many Germans are intensely aware of this. It's a large part of the curriculum live in schools, the act that Germany does bear a deep historical responsibility for the murder of Jews in the Second World War, and that these really are uniquely terrible crimes. And that creates, I think, a sense of historical responsibility, which comes to the fore on various occasions. And in particular, it came to the four in the refugee crisis, because I think for many, it was a very welcome opportunity to show that we're not just the country that caused that sinned against humanity effectively in the

Second World War. No, we are a different place now, and we stand a different place now. And we stand a up for our responsibility towards the world, towards the poor and the needy. Now, it seems like this issue is not viewed equally across the country, right? Help me understand the difference in thinking maybe in the Western or more urban parts of the nation versus the East. Going back to the idea of homogeneity, I mean, the formerly communist run Eastern Germany, there just weren't as many foreigners as in Western Germany. you know, there wasn't the same freedom of movement.

And so the arrival of kind of relatively large numbers of people from the Middle East is a much bigger culture shock in Eastern Germany compared to Western Germany. Well, it's important to note that what we're a little over 30 years out from this East German, West German divide, how are the lingering effects of that separation playing into this? I think so there's the fact that Eastern Germany is still not as well off as Western Germany. So people are kind of more resources that are simply scarcer. So people feel frustrated to see resources going to refugees when they themselves feel like they're struggling to make ends meet. And especially right now, obviously with the cost of living crisis after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the end of kind of cheap Russian gas supplies to Germany, that is, I think that that is increasing at the forefront of people's minds. Yeah, this is an absolutely fascinating point. How deep the marks wrought by 40 years of.

of living in two different separate states have been. They were reunified in 1990. So that means that almost as much time has passed since reunification as passed that Germany is of two separate states. And yet the differences between Western Germany and Eastern Germany are still very visible. You can take a map of any given economic or demographic indicator, and East Germany is visibly different on just about any axis from the West.

So if you look at religiosity, for example, West Germans tend to be more religious. If you look at economic performance, most famously, certainly wages are higher in the West and lower in the East, but it doesn't always go the same way. So because, for example, bringing women into the Labour force was a priority for the Communists and less so for the West German post-war governments. And that is still visible in the statistics to this day. There are more women in senior positions in East Germany. There are more women working full stop in East Germany. and more men take paternity leave to take care of their children in the east and in the west. So the differences persist on a deep level.

And the other factor is that one of the first things the Russians did, or the Soviet Union did, when they occupied Germany, was to dismantle some of its factories and ship them back to the Soviet Union as war reparations, which was actually a very heavy blow because eastern Germany was back then, one of the country's industrial heartlands. and the population grew more slowly in the east throughout that period. I think another big difference between eastern and western Germany is the sort of the believable lack thereof in democracy. So in Eastern Germany, the belief in democracy is much lower than in the West.

And that probably has something to do with the fact that when reunification happened, then the West German Chancellor Helmut Kuo promised bloomed a landshafteren, so blooming landscapes. He forecast that we were going to see the East German economy kind of catching up with the West very quickly. And that didn't happen. And on top of that, sort of East Germany was kind of swallowed up into West Germany. It wasn't really, they didn't create a new, some parties at the time had said, like we should create a new constitution so that both Germans are taken into account.

In the end, they didn't. And I think that that has also left East Germans feeling like their perspective is not really taken into account. Hmm. See, that helps me understand the landscape that has maybe given way to the rise of these political parties. Now, there are two in particular that have really risen to prominence recently. Tell me about the alternative for Germany party or AFD. So the alternative for Germany was created about 11 years ago. At the time, it was created as an anti-Euro party by a group of academics and journalists. And over time, it's progressively become more and more right wing. And those original founders of the party, pretty much all of them have left it. And it's become more extremists in its positions.

So how does that play out specifically in policy position? It's evolved into a very radical party in many areas. So, for example, it's opposed to supporting Ukraine. It is opposed to lots of environmental protection initiatives. They don't like initiatives to promote. the use of electric cars or heat pumps. They are also very radical on things like migration. There was a scandal at the beginning of the year

when it turned out that several of their people had been at a meeting discussing sending back migrants who had obtained German citizenship. So effectively they were thinking about ways of getting rid of people who were fully legally German because they didn't fit in. It wasn't explicitly stated that they meant Muslims or people of color,

but that was definitely the way it looked. To the extent that security services keep an eye on them as being a danger to democracy. Now, it's interesting that in describing the party, it feels like it's maybe easier to describe them in the negative. They're anti-this, anti-that. How does that manifest in what they want to see Germany actually become? I think that that is one of the issues with the AFD

is that they define themselves through protests a lot and not so much through comprehensive policies. For example, earlier this year when we had this big issue of remigration, became, it exploded in Germany then. And the AFD had to sort of quickly scramble together to get a sort of policy on remigration that they could present to the public to show that they did not necessarily

agree with the idea of sending German citizens away. Now, it strikes me that when we talk about things like remigration, we're getting into territory that is maybe sensitive for Germany, given its not too recent past. how does that set off red flags for Germans who are still acutely aware of Germany's history in World War II? This is, I think, a really important point because the Far Bright Party is doing well in polls at the moment and is also getting a lot of attention. But it is worth pointing out that even in the states where they're strongest, according to polls at least, the majority of votes goes to parties that are which don't espouse such views, especially on things like migration or race or.

integration or society. But there was this meeting at the start of the year when several members of the party talked about so-called remigration, which they called it remigration. When called to account about it, they said that they meant that Germans who were abroad should be enticed to come home, to contribute to rebuilding the motherland. Others understood it very differently and thought that they were talking about deporting people who didn't fit in according to their own criteria, whether that be race or religion or something else. When the details of this meeting, which was attended by very senior people at the party, was leaked, it provoked weeks, months of angry protests. There were demonstrations all across Germany. It was a freezing winter and people were gathered on the

ground in front of the German parliament in Berlin. So that tells you, I think, that for all that there are far right tendencies in the party that get a lot of attention, there is a much larger group in Germany, a much larger majority in Germany that is deeply uncomfortable with this and as opposed to it. There was this process in Germany called Feggenhe's Pevertegengenheim. So basically working through your past. And I think that Germans had this very strong culture of remembrance, especially in Western Germany. But that same process didn't take place the same way in Eastern Germany. Essentially, a lot of the Nazi crimes were ascribed more to sort of Western Germany. And correct me if I'm wrong, Thomas, but Eastern Germany was basically absolved of the,

so it absolved itself of the Nazi crimes and kind of to some extent. And it was more sort of perceived to be an issue of Western Germany. So I don't think that there is the same sense of historical guilt in Eastern Germany. So who has risen to a prominence within, AFD ahead of these state elections. So the most popular person in the membership is a man called Bjorn Hoker, who is the leader of the party in the state of Turingia, which is one of the where there is going to be an election on Sunday. And he was a teacher of history and sport at a high school before he decided to enter politics. If you read accounts, if you talk to his former pupils,

it's clear that he was very right wing, even then. And he has kind of formed a kind of nativist vision for the party, and it's immensely popular. So it's quite clear. Successive generations of party leaders have been unable to control him, even though they probably feel that he's a liability to the party, because he brings down the attention of law enforcement on it and also brings unwanted scandals. But there he is with his carefully cultivated image of sporty and toned and fit-looking, with piercing blue eyes and blonde hair. He's going for a very particular, image, which really resonates with his supporters, and they are really enchanted with him. He is very canny, I think it's fair to say, about dancing close to the line using phrases

that are evocative of moments in Germany's past that others are less keen on. Most recently, he used the phrase, all for Germany, or everything for Germany, which was actually the slogan of the Nazi's paramilitary wing, the SS. it's illegal to use Nazi phrases or slogans in Germany, and so he prosecuted for it. When he was prosecuted for it, he claimed, and I remind you that he's a history teacher, he claimed that he didn't know that this phrase was the slogan of the SS. Hmm. But he's not the only candidate that's been using anti-migration rhetoric to appeal to voters, right? Tell me about Sarawagan-Kinect and the BSW party.

Sarah Wagenknecht grew up in Eastern Germany. Her father was an Iranian visiting student. Her mother was German. And the father disappeared from the picture quite early on. And his absence, I think, was quite formative for her. She was an extremely good student. She got great grades in Russian. And she was also a real believer in East Germany and in the Communist Party that ruled it. She remained within the Communist Party and became part of its democratic successor party, which became the left party. And she was quite a major force in the left party, but a very divisive one. And she always represented what you could call perhaps the paternalist left line. The left party was divided between the urban hippie theoreticians who cared a lot about identity and social policy and stuff like that. She was very much more on the paternalist line where she was about what could we do for the simple people. And so in that sense, she was perhaps a more authentic representative of the Old East German Communist Party.

But now she's decided to split off from her former party. She recently left the left party and set up her own version of it and her own party called the Sarah Wagnerstein Alliance, because she herself is an iconic figure. She's one of the few people in German politics who has a personal profile. So what does she actually want to accomplish? So she has a set of policies which could be displayed. as, which on social policy is quite left-wing. She wants, you know, higher minimum wage. She wants better schools publicly funded, better hospitals publicly funded. And she also most famously wants peace in Ukraine. And she, if you asked her about that, she will say that she wants an end to the

suffering. She's very unspecific about how this end to the suffering and death in Ukraine can be delivered. And so her critics say that she elides all these topics and so's confusion by this generalized appeal for peace without actually spelling out the likely consequences of what she proposes to do. That has made her an immensely controversial figure, but she is popular, especially in the East. In some of the Eastern States, her parties pulling up to 20%, which could make her indispensable after, to forming coalitions after the elections. So, Thomas, you pointed out earlier that both parties, the AFD, the BSW, have gained popularity, potentially going to see double-digit support in some of these state-run elections this month,

but they're likely not going to hold a majority of the vote. What does that mean moving forward if either of these parties gain ground but fail to reach a majority? The AFD in particular is very unlikely to be part of any coalition government because all the parties, including Zarevagenek, have said that they will not work with the party which they regard as anti-democratic and extremist and far right. So even if it gets the most seats in the legislature, as it's quite likely, according to the falls, it's very unlikely to end up in a position to govern. The situation with Vassar Wagen-Knecht is a little bit different because none of the parties

have said they rule out working with her. There are perhaps varying degrees of uneasiness about her, but no one has ruled her out. Already now in Schultz's coalition, which is quite ideologically heterogeneous, it's been quite difficult for them to reach agreement on various policies. And within the European Union, Germany has become known as an awkward partner to work with. And other countries say that Germany is slowing down decision making because it feels like you're not dealing with just a government with a very clear stance on something. You know, you're dealing with there's three different parties

who all have to kind of have different stances on every issue. Hmm, fascinating. So how are the more established parties trying to counteract the popularity of these up-and-comers? There's a range of approaches. Sometimes they aim for a centrist approach, rejecting their extremist prescriptions and insisting that salvation lies in the centre. At the moment, especially the centre-right, seems to be pursuing, of course, more of embracing the topics championed by the AFD in particular. So, for example, demanding that the government show that it's up to the task of stemming immigration flows. In the past, that approach hasn't actually been

terribly effective in containing the far right. And of course, I'm not party to what's in Olaf Schultz's innermost thoughts, but I suspect their base case is that Germany will reemerge from the economic dolgems that's in right now. And when growth starts to return, when things seem a little bit less chaotic, then voters will drift back towards them and that the extreme parties won't need to be vanquished and they will just fade away of their own accord. That might prove to be a very naive bet. There was talk earlier this year about trying to ban the AFD, but I think that the consensus that emerged was that it would, even if it was legally possible, that it could produce a backlash where people feel that their voice is not being heard and therefore, you know,

are even more angry with established parties and feel even more frustrated by the German political system. So that was, I think that's not really, people are not really talking about that as an option anymore. That's certainly one of the things that has changed in recent years that you're seeing a lot more hostility in German politics. You're seeing a more aggressive political climate as much, you can know rhetorically the level of the politicians, but also you're seeing attacks, like physical attacks on politicians. And during this campaign, we've heard of a few politicians who've said that they're not going to stand again because they can't stand the political climate anymore. And they don't want to expose themselves to that degree of

hostility. We'll have the results from Germany's state elections when our daily show comes back on Tuesday. Some of us are taking off for the U.S. Labor Day holiday. And if you're able to as well, I hope it's relaxing. The special thanks to Sarah Marsh and Thomas Eskrit for their great reporting. Reuters World News is produced by Sharon Reichgarson, Jonah Green, Tara Oaks, Gail Issa, David Spencer, and myself, Christopher Waljasper. Sound design, engineering, and music composition by Josh Summer. Our regular host is Kim Vennel. Carmel Crimmons is our senior producer.

Our executive producer is Leila Decretzer. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.