Post-election analysis: This is not 1933

You could almost believe it was January 30, 1933, not September 1, 2024. However, the panic of the chattering classes — paradox­i­cally mirroring and thus reinforcing the populists’ rhetoric of doom — may be more dangerous than the result itself. Populists have been successful in two federal states that together make up less than seven per cent of the population of the Federal Republic. Okay, that’s bad enough. But it’s not the end of the republic.

Democracy is firmly entrenched among Germany’s elites

The main reason for this is, unlike in the Weimar Republic, Germany’s elites are committed to democracy.  Industry, the military and the church are anchored in Western values and support NATO and the European Union. The same applies to the connective tissue of admin­is­trative bureau­cracies, trade unions, social organ­i­sa­tions etc. When even the TÜV associ­ation felt obliged to warn against voting for the AfD, then one can see how much more civilised the Federal Republic is. Of course, that can change. How and in which direction remains to be seen.

For now, let’s stick with the comparison between Berlin and the Weimar Republic: Today, the brutalised gener­ation of those who fought in a World War is absent; the abject poverty and govern­mental ignorance of the pre-Keynesian era is absent; the resentment of a proud nation betrayed by the Treaty of Versailles is also absent; and, realis­ti­cally, the delusion that Germany must be a world power or at least the hegemonic power of conti­nental Europe is absent. Indeed, the reactionary forces in Germany today are marked by a foreign policy defeatism that would have horrified any National Socialist, German nation­alist, or supporter of the Conser­v­ative Revolution before 1933.

Defeatism strengthens populism

However, this ‘not-my-problem’ defeatism is a key to under­standing the populists’ success. The parallels drawn by alarmists between the AfD and the NSDAP distract from more apt compar­isons. These include the reactionary forces in France, Great Britain and the USA that preached friendship and under­standing with Nazi Germany or at least appeasement before the Second World War. Back then, the ‘axis’ of fascism and revisionist power was Germany, Italy and Japan, while today, the axis of author­i­tarian and revisionist regimes is China, Russia and Iran.

 The strength of the erstwhile defeatists proved fatal for France; in the end, the Anglo-Saxon elites were more resilient. But what is the situation in Germany today? When it comes to immigration, the right-wing populists were accurate with their slogan: ‘AfD works!’ Not only the CDU/​CSU, but also the traffic light parties are now advocating positions that would have been considered unacceptable back in 2015. But they are doing so because their former politics are now seen as untenable. The question is whether the AfD and BSW could also have an impact on foreign policy.

CDU Prime Minister Kretschmer as pirate of the AfD

AfD leader Timo Chrupalla was right when he said that Saxony’s Minister President and CDU leader Michael Kretschmer has positioned himself as a ‘free rider and pirate’ of AfD policy — not only in terms of migration, but also in terms of ‘coming to an under­standing’ with Vladimir Putin. And Sahra Wagenknecht, without whose party the CDU cannot govern in either Saxony or Thuringia, wants to include a statement on these topics in the coalition agreement as a condition of her partic­i­pation. She is calling for a diplo­mat­i­cally brokered end to the war in Ukraine and to reject the stationing of American medium-range missiles in western Germany.

Kretschmer should have little trouble with this. In Thuringia, CDU leader Mario Voigt may be saying to himself: ‘Paris vaut bien une messe.’ After all, lip service costs nothing, especially since state-level politics are not respon­sible for relations with Russia and the USA. The hope of the CDU/​CSU state leaders is likely to rest on disen­chantment with the Wagenknecht party once they are active in government and pushing the AfD back into the electorate’s favour by taking a hard line on refugee policy.

 AfD ‘Project 2029’

On the other hand, the AfD also has a plan, and it is called ‘Project 2029’. According to the AfD’s leading figures, the CDU/CSU’s stopgap coali­tions with the BSW and the remnants of the ‘west parties’ will shake the CDU’s credi­bility. This will extend beyond east Germany, causing the firewall against the AfD to crumble at state level first and fall at national level by 2029 at the latest. And a coalition between the CDU and the AfD will also come at a price in terms of foreign policy.

Whether this will come to pass, however, does not depend solely, or even primarily, on devel­op­ments within Germany. If Ukraine falls, followed by Moldova, Georgia and Armenia will ultimately become Moscow’s satel­lites once more; if Putin regains the upper hand in the Balkans, this could possibly ignite a new Bosnian civil war and ultimately provoke Serbia, or perhaps even Hungary, to turn away from the EU — so if Ukraine falls, the cards will also be reshuffled in Germany. This could result in the propo­nents of a pro-Russian approach in Germany gaining the upper hand, on the left as well as on the right, in the SPD as well as in the CDU.

Yes, even in the CDU/​CSU. One should not forget that after the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which was seen as a defeat and betrayal of the USA, Gaullism, which envisaged a ‘Europe of father­lands’, became temporarily acceptable in the Union. De Gaulle’s vision was to maintain a geopo­litical equidis­tance between the USA and the Soviet Union. It would be reckless to assume that a Kretschmer would have no chance of becoming the Union’s candidate for chancellor after a Western defeat in Ukraine.

The outcome of the war in Ukraine will be decisive for the future of Germany and Europe.

Under these condi­tions, the German elites could also prove to be — shall we say — pliable. In the end, business comes first, as demon­strated by Nord Stream and the fatal depen­dency on the Chinese market that the German car industry has manoeuvred itself into. In 2029, the problem would not be a new Adolf Hitler, but a German Philippe Pétain; not German megalo­mania, but small-minded German subor­di­nation to Chinese and Russian ambitions. Not national socialism, but author­i­tarian capitalism and an illiberal democracy along the lines of the Hungarian model.

This is why the future of German democracy also depends on Ukraine’s victory, even if one has become cautious with such formu­la­tions. We may recall the former Social Democrat Defence Minister Peter Struck’s claim that Germany’s security would also be defended in the Hindu Kush. But Struck was not wrong. Germany has not become more secure since the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Nor has Germany become more secure since the  traffic-light coalition ended the mission in Syria. But those defeats for the West were peanuts compared to the accep­tance of Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2014 and the global political earth­quake that a collapse of Ukraine would trigger.

The AfD’s 2029 project will also be decided in the Donbass. Does the Chancellor realise this?