How
Merkel and Merz lost eastern Germany to the AfD
This
Sunday, the far right is well placed to take power in a German state for the
first time since 1945.
By ANNE
MCELVOY
in Naumburg, Germany
Illustration
by Barbara Gibson for POLITICO
September
3, 2026 4:00 am CET
Ulrich
Siegmund, lead candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party,
took to the stage in the central marketplace of the town of Naumburg and
declared there was a new “awakening” in eastern Germany.
Ahead of
a vital election in the region of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday — in which Siegmund
is within striking distance of becoming the
first far-right leader to govern a German state since 1945 — that
appeal to an eastern identity struck a chord.
A young
man beside me was hollering “Ostdeutschland!” although he was too
young to have lived in the communist German Democratic Republic. “It was purer
there,” he explained. “More German. Not America-Germany like the West.”
Elements
of Siegmund’s new awakening sounded reminiscent of the old East, and his speech
would certainly have played well in the Kremlin. He condemned the foolishness
of supporting “corrupt” Ukraine and addressed the need to return to oil and gas
supplies from Russia.
East
Germany formally dissolved in 1990, but it did not disappear. Its struggles for
identity within the sprawling German federal system, with power concentrated in
Berlin, have fueled the ascent of the far right.
If
the AfD does secure an outright victory this weekend, it will raise
profound questions about how chancellors such as Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel and
Friedrich Merz failed to manage the post-unification transition and prevent
large parts of the east from veering off on a political trajectory toward
the far right.
Sausages
and strongarms
In a
generally upbeat line for sausages and beer in Naumburg, there were also
some less cheery sorts in neo-Nazi T-shirts and regalia. One of the crowd
told me the government in Berlin “sends our tax money to the Jews in Israel and
[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy instead of spending it here.”
It is
important to stress that the eastern political identity is not monochrome
nostalgia for the GDR. Indeed, the AfD is repurposing the slogan of the 1989
demonstrations against communism — “Wir sind das Volk” – “We are the
people” — for its own ends.
That taps
into memories of marching for freedom in the last days of the socialist
state.
“And now
we will show the world again,” said Dirk Huzenlaub, a metalworker in his blue
overalls, whom I spoke to on another campaign pit stop in the nearby
town of Lützen
He has
done well as a self- employed worker, supplying many local companies. But
he adds that the “people at the top don’t want us to do well — they keep
us down on purpose.” A welter of internet conspiracy theories followed,
including the notion that Merz and his predecessor Merkel “betrayed us — we
risk our country collapsing the way the old East
Germany collapsed.”
AfD supporters gather to listen to the party’s candidate in
the Saxony-Anhalt election, Ulrich Siegmund, on August 24, 2026 in Naumburg. |
Gallup/Getty Images
Beyond
the conviviality of the sausage line, the mood can sour fast — as I discovered
when I sought to speak with Siegmund in Lützen, only to be
told “mainstream” press were not welcome. I was roughly jostled
aside, my arm twisted by a musclebound heavy flanking Siegmund, who sported an
earpiece and a lavishly tattooed neck.
“Move or
I will take you to the police,” he barked. We had a short, unproductive
debate about the constitutionally guaranteed right to report freely in public
places.
Another hard
arm twist and shove ensued, ending with me stumbling over a curb and
being dragged to a police car. No one seemed much bothered by this.
“This
woman is being un-co-operative,” the minder snarled. At the next stop in
Naumburg, another attentive policeman enjoined me to stay away from “Security
Zone 1” — anywhere near the stage.
Then came
the more chilling warning.
“It’s for
your own safety,” he added. “Best remember, in that zone, the AfD are the
masters.”
Merkel
and the migration backlash
The last
two chancellors — Merz and Merkel — have provoked a strong backlash in
eastern Germany.
For
Merkel, the outcome could have been more positive. She hailed from the East
herself and was an active participant in the Wende, or “turn”,
away from communism. She inherited Kohl’s pledge to produce “flourishing
landscapes” in the “new federal states.” Forlorn towns and cities
were restored, the air pollution from brown-coal energy supplies ended,
and potholed roads are now smooth enough to roar along in Mercedes and BMWs.
But the
East responded far more negatively to Merkel’s decision to allow a mass influx
of asylum seekers from Syria and North Africa in 2015 and 2016. She signaled
her empathy for that in a conversation with me in 2018, saying she
understood the heartache of easterners seeing their communities empty out
demographically and traditional jobs disappear.
“Of
course, these disturbing personal experiences affect people and leave a deep
mark — we need to understand this,” she said.
But
Merkel’s responses did not go far enough for people worried about the speed of
social change. And from 2015, the AfD began to soar.
The Covid
era deepened divisions too: a social media campaign demanded the introduction
of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine ahead of better options. That demonstrated a
complex blend of attitudes which feature strongly in AfD lore to this day:
Distrust of Western capitalism and an acceptance of Russia.
The
veteran sociologist Detlef Pollack diagnoses a “victim mythology” western
politicians find hard to combat without sounding aloof. Fully three-quarters of
voters who lean towards the AfD think the unified Germany has robbed them of
their just deserts, in comparison with two-fifths of the public in the old
GDR.
Frustration
came to mark the dealings of Merkel and her successor Merz in talking about the
mood in the old east.
“There is
no point trying to convince you [about the justification for accepting
over 1 million refugees],” she said at a rally I attended in her final
election campaign in 2017 in the industrial town of Bitterfeld as a hostile mob
booed and blew horns to stop her being heard. Backstage she shook her
head, clearly furious.
The more
she was lionized as a Gloriana of international liberal democracy for her
robust dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump, the more alienated she became
from socially conservative easterners. The AfD also learned from the MAGA
movement how to unite multiple strands of thought into campaign messages,
interwoven with slugs of fake or exaggerated stories.
The
arrival of Merz, a western politician not armed with a vast array of
communication skills, together with struggles of the wider German economy —
like the symbolic hit of massive
projected job losses at the VW plant in Wolfsburg close to the old border —
have taken a further shine off the lure of the Federal Republic’s
prosperity model.
Falling
behind
An
assessment from the Halle Institute for Economic Research noted that, after the
1990s, the “initial catch-up momentum came to a halt. Since then, the East
German economy has mostly grown even more slowly than the West German
one.”
It blamed
the “lack of productivity of East German companies,” as well as a protracted
brain drain and a low rate of business formation. A German defense
official, granted permission to speak confidentially to POLITICO, added:
“Overwhelmingly, the new defense industries which will drive prosperity and
security are based in the old Federal Republic. That gives the east less
interest in arming against Russia — it’s a double hit we need to
address.”
Merkel
has demanded more “courage” to “fight for democracy,” channeling her own
brand of 1989 nostalgia. These messages embolden the AfD’s opponents, including
churchgoers now rallying as they did against the regime in 1989.
Problematically, though, her appeals can also come across as “Bevormundung,”
with eastern Germans feeling like they are being treated with haughty
condescension.
People, including supporters of Antifa, protesting near an
AfD rally in Naumburg on August 24, 2026. | Gallup/Getty Images
Merz
warns that a far-right government in Saxony-Anhalt would mean “foreign
investors steering clear of the state in future” and that the state “will face
considerable problems.”
Whether
that scare tactic proves persuasive remains to be seen.
(For his
part, Siegmund has shed the miserabilist mantras of other AfD luminaries.
“My God, the women are great-looking in this town,” I hear him announce to
giggling selfie-seekers in Lützen. “Better not tell my wife.”)
Merz also
does not exude much personal interest in the East, other than seeing it as a
problem to be kept at bay. Very few of his Cabinet hail from that part of
Germany — though the party cites the rise of a new generation of eastern
Germans to the next tier of ministerial posts. That may need to accelerate soon
to combat the rising mood of alienation.
Arriving
on a whistlestop visit on Monday to support Sven Schulze as his party’s
candidate for minister-president, the chancellor condemned “people who trade on
anger.” He did venture out among voters — something many leading
politicians avoid.
Saxony-Anhalt
is a small state in population — with just over 2 million inhabitants. But
it is also the cradle of the Lutheran tradition of challenging the mighty
— a theme that the more historically minded rally-goers raised with me.
As Siegmund
puts it: “Even if we don’t get there [to an overall majority], we are not going
away.” That too was a stubborn cry from the streets in late 1989. And in
2026, it spurred huge roars of approval through the marketplace in Naumburg, drowning
out the counter-protests.
On
Sunday, the AfD will be put to the test.
So too
will a German political establishment that won unification, only to lose much
of its grip on people power.
Anne
McElvoy is a former correspondent in East Germany and author of The Saddled
Cow, East Germany’s Life and Legacy.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário