Germany’s Elections: What the Alt-Right AfD’s Success Could Mean For Europe

Photo via France 24

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On February 23, 2025, Friedrich Merz was elected Chancellor of Germany. Merz and his party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), received 28.5% of the vote. The CDU needed 316 seats to claim a majority. Out of 635 seats in the German Parliament, the party claimed 208, falling short by about 108.

Germany’s former Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, a member of the Social Democrats (SDU), fell to third place in the country. His party won 16.4% of the vote and 120 seats, a sharp decrease from the 206 they claimed in the previous election in 2021. 

Trailing in second place is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), winning 20.8% of the vote. The AfD’s right-wing platform has attracted the attention of many young Germans, specifically in former East Germany. During this election, they doubled their share of votes from the previous election in 2021. 

In recent years, AfD has drawn attention to its platform, which consists of multiple far-right platitudes, campaigning on an isolationist, harshly anti-immigration, anti-European Union, and right-wing populist platform. The party and its leaders have been fined by the German courts multiple times for the use of Nazi slogans. Specifically, Bjorn Hocke, the leader of the AfD, has repeatedly been seen using Nazi slogans such as the phrase “Everything for Germany” (“Alles für Deutschland”). The phrase was originally a slogan of the Nazi stormtroopers and engraved on their daggers. The party is notorious for its downplaying of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the Holocaust, claiming Germany no longer needs to atone for their actions. 

“We Germans, our people, are the only people in the world who planted a monument of shame in the middle of our national capital,” Bjorn Hocke claimed in a 2017 speech to the AfD youth wing. 

Alexander Gaudland, the party’s co-leader, went on to defend the party’s position at the event. “Yes, we accept our responsibility for those 12 years…,” Gauland continued, but “Hitler and the Nazis are just bird shit in more than 1,000 years of successful German history.”

An increase in the presence of alt-right politics has become more and more visible throughout the years. Although not victorious in this election, AfD’s success signals a new era—for both Germany and Europe. 

There is no coincidence that AfD succeeded in the way that it did. When the party was founded over ten years ago, Germans were quick to dismiss it as a joke, a mere fluke in a centrist-controlled government. 

However, just before Germans voted in their federal election, members of the U.S. government’s far-right released major statements of endorsements for the AfD. Powerful government officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance and President Donald J. Trump, backed the AfD, openly supporting the party’s sentiments regarding immigration. 

The rise of anti-immigration sentiment has become a growing issue over the last few years; all culminating in the rise of far-right parties, political leaders, and propaganda in almost every continent. The campaign and election of Donald Trump in 2016 ignited a wildfire across the world that gave the alt-right a monumental platform. 

Now, after President Trump’s re-election, we are seeing the effects of his right-wing populist campaign on a global scale. While the AfD is still approximately 108 Parliamentary seats from claiming a majority, the party has the right to claim a small victory: they have cemented their place in the German Parliament. They have made themselves a household name, and they have certainly come far despite their previous reputation as a “fluke” party nearly a decade ago. 

The AfD’s rise to prominence is just another example of far-right politics spreading throughout Europe. With such a powerful country in the European Union leaning further and further right, there is a strong possibility that the sphere of influence around Germany will affect the entire continent’s political leanings, bringing the world further right on the political spectrum. 

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This article was edited by Colin Mitchell and Shannon Jimenez.