Germany’s Far-Right ‘Firewall’ Is Starting to Crack

Foreign Policy ^ | FEBRUARY 20, 2023 | Emily Schultheis

[nickcarraway]

At the national level, parties insist they won’t work or vote with the far-right AfD—but at the local level, it happens all the time.

Ever since the populist far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party came onto the country’s political scene, there has been an explicit taboo among the other parties against collaborating with it. Leaders of the five main other parties in Germany’s Bundestag—the center-left Social Democratic Party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union bloc, the Greens, the pro-business Free Democratic Party, and the Left party—have vowed not to work with the AfD in any form, erecting what they refer to as a Brandmauer (or “firewall”) between them and the far-right party.

But 10 years after the AfD’s founding, that so-called firewall is beginning to show cracks. The AfD has become both more successful and more radicalized in recent years. It has capitalized on a mix of anti-refugee sentiment, coronavirus skepticism, and economic insecurity to become the strongest party in two of five eastern German states and win double-digit support nationally. And it’s in places like Bautzen, this AfD stronghold of around 40,000 people in eastern Saxony, that the national parties’ commitment to isolating the AfD is breaking down.

In December 2022, when the AfD proposed cutting benefits for refugees in the area to Bautzen’s district-level council, 19 members of the CDU voted in favor of the plan. Udo Witschas, one of the CDU representatives who backed the proposal, said he thought it was “completely fine” to vote with the AfD—and in a video published on his Facebook page, he echoed the kind of anti-refugee rhetoric common among the AfD. Speaking about the possibility of housing refugees in a nearby gym, Witschas said, “It is not our intention to let sports, whether school or leisure sports, bleed for this

[Da Coyote]

Hmmmm, I see “far-right” all the time. I have not seen “far-left”. Interesting. Of course, it’s obviously because there is no “far-left”. Uh-huh.
And one wonders why journalists and politicians are contained with the set labeled “not quite there folks”.

[dsrtsage]

Far Right in Europe is to the left of antifa here

[House Atreides]

When the TRUTH of who exactly committed the ACT OF WAR of blowing up the jointly owned German-Russian Nord Stream pipeline network (and IT WILL COME OUT) it will be ‘Katie Bar the Door’ time for the AfD party. And it will dawn on the German people which German political are FOR the German people and which ones want to see them damaged and crushed,

[DMD13]

I now know that “far right” as the media puts it, is a GOOD THING!

[BobL]

“When the TRUTH of who exactly committed the ACT OF WAR of blowing up the jointly owned German-Russian Nord Stream pipeline network”

It’s interesting that the article DOES NOT mention Ukraine once, as Ukraine is the AfD’s ticket to power. Kind of like doing a report on the lovely park next to the municipal building in East Palestine without mentioning the toxic plume they have to deal with.