{"id":65947,"date":"2024-09-13T10:33:35","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T08:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/a-shift-to-the-right-in-the-eu-a-differentiated-view-of-the-election-results-copy\/"},"modified":"2024-09-19T17:48:32","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T15:48:32","slug":"post-election-analysis-this-is-not-1933","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/post-election-analysis-this-is-not-1933\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-election analysis: This is not 1933"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=\u201c\u201d]<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=\u201d.vc_custom_1508251598805{margin-top: 30px !important;}\u201d][vc_column width=\u201c2\/3\u201d css=\u201d.vc_custom_1508252250311{padding-right: 20px !important;}\u201d][vc_column_text css=\u201c\u201d]<\/p>\n

Following the achieve\u00adments of the AfD \u2014 and the equally xenophobic and Russia-friendly BSW \u2014 in the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, commen\u00adtators are outdoing themselves in alarmism. Writing on the day after the election, Alan Posener takes a critical look at these developments.<\/h3>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=\u201d.vc_custom_1726760850434{border-top-width: 5px !important;border-right-width: 5px !important;border-bottom-width: 5px !important;border-left-width: 5px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #bdede0 !important;border-radius: 10px !important;border-color: #bdede0 !important;}\u201d]<\/p>\n

Alan Posener is a German-British journalist and author of numerous books. Posener is a former editor and head of commentary at Die Welt and Welt am Sonntag. He is currently a freelance contributor to Die Welt, Zeit online, other media outlets and his blog, Starke Meinung. Since 2014, he has also been writing exten\u00adsively about the events in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=\u201c\u201d]<\/p>\n

You could almost believe it was January 30, 1933, not September 1, 2024. However, the panic of the chattering classes \u2014 paradox\u00adi\u00adcally mirroring and thus reinforcing the populists\u2019 rhetoric of doom \u2014 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\u2019s bad enough. But it\u2019s not the end of the republic.<\/p>\n

Democracy is firmly entrenched among Germany\u2019s elites<\/h2>\n

The main reason for this is, unlike in the Weimar Republic, Germany\u2019s 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 admin\u00adis\u00adtrative bureau\u00adcracies, trade unions, social organ\u00adi\u00adsa\u00adtions etc. When even the T\u00dcV associ\u00adation 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.<\/p>\n

For now, let\u2019s stick with the comparison between Berlin and the Weimar Republic: Today, the brutalised gener\u00adation of those who fought in a World War is absent; the abject poverty and govern\u00admental ignorance of the pre-Keynesian era is absent; the resentment of a proud nation betrayed by the Treaty of Versailles is also absent; and, realis\u00adti\u00adcally, the delusion that Germany must be a world power or at least the hegemonic power of conti\u00adnental 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 nation\u00adalist, or supporter of the Conser\u00adv\u00adative Revolution before 1933.<\/p>\n

Defeatism strengthens populism<\/h2>\n

However, this \u2018not-my-problem\u2019 defeatism is a key to under\u00adstanding the populists\u2019 success. The parallels drawn by alarmists between the AfD and the NSDAP distract from more apt compar\u00adisons. These include the reactionary forces in France, Great Britain and the USA that preached friendship and under\u00adstanding with Nazi Germany or at least appeasement before the Second World War. Back then, the \u2018axis\u2019 of fascism and revisionist power was Germany, Italy and Japan, while today, the axis of author\u00adi\u00adtarian and revisionist regimes is China, Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n

 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: \u2018AfD works!\u2019 Not only the CDU\/\u200bCSU, 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.<\/p>\n

CDU Prime Minister Kretschmer as pirate of the AfD<\/h2>\n

AfD leader Timo Chrupalla was right when he said that Saxony\u2019s Minister President and CDU leader Michael Kretschmer has positioned himself as a \u2018free rider and pirate\u2019 of AfD policy \u2014 not only in terms of migration, but also in terms of \u2018coming to an under\u00adstanding\u2019 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 partic\u00adi\u00adpation. She is calling for a diplo\u00admat\u00adi\u00adcally brokered end to the war in Ukraine and to reject the stationing of American medium-range missiles in western Germany.<\/p>\n

Kretschmer should have little trouble with this. In Thuringia, CDU leader Mario Voigt may be saying to himself: \u2018Paris vaut bien une messe.\u2019 After all, lip service costs nothing, especially since state-level politics are not respon\u00adsible for relations with Russia and the USA. The hope of the CDU\/\u200bCSU state leaders is likely to rest on disen\u00adchantment with the Wagenknecht party once they are active in government and pushing the AfD back into the electorate\u2019s favour by taking a hard line on refugee policy.<\/p>\n

 AfD \u2018Project 2029\u2019<\/h2>\n

On the other hand, the AfD also has a plan, and it is called \u2018Project 2029\u2019. According to the AfD\u2019s leading figures, the CDU\/\u200bCSU\u2019s stopgap coali\u00adtions with the BSW and the remnants of the \u2018west parties\u2019 will shake the CDU\u2019s credi\u00adbility. 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.<\/p>\n

Whether this will come to pass, however, does not depend solely, or even primarily, on devel\u00adop\u00adments within Germany. If Ukraine falls, followed by Moldova, Georgia and Armenia will ultimately become Moscow\u2019s satel\u00adlites 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 \u2014 so if Ukraine falls, the cards will also be reshuffled in Germany. This could result in the propo\u00adnents 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.<\/p>\n

Yes, even in the CDU\/\u200bCSU. 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 \u2018Europe of father\u00adlands\u2019, became temporarily acceptable in the Union. De Gaulle\u2019s vision was to maintain a geopo\u00adlitical equidis\u00adtance between the USA and the Soviet Union. It would be reckless to assume that a Kretschmer would have no chance of becoming the Union\u2019s candidate for chancellor after a Western defeat in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The outcome of the war in Ukraine will be decisive for the future of Germany and Europe.<\/h2>\n

Under these condi\u00adtions, the German elites could also prove to be \u2014 shall we say \u2014 pliable. In the end, business comes first, as demon\u00adstrated by Nord Stream and the fatal depen\u00addency 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 P\u00e9tain; not German megalo\u00admania, but small-minded German subor\u00addi\u00adnation to Chinese and Russian ambitions. Not national socialism, but author\u00adi\u00adtarian capitalism and an illiberal democracy along the lines of the Hungarian model.<\/p>\n

This is why the future of German democracy also depends on Ukraine\u2019s victory, even if one has become cautious with such formu\u00adla\u00adtions. We may recall the former Social Democrat Defence Minister Peter Struck\u2019s claim that Germany\u2019s 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 accep\u00adtance of Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2014 and the global political earth\u00adquake that a collapse of Ukraine would trigger.<\/p>\n

The AfD\u2019s 2029 project will also be decided in the Donbass. Does the Chancellor realise this?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Textende\"[\/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]Hat Ihnen unser Beitrag gefallen? Dann spenden Sie doch einfach und bequem \u00fcber unser Spendentool. Sie unter\u00adst\u00fctzen damit die publizis\u00adtische Arbeit von LibMod.<\/p>\n

Spenden mit Bankeinzug<\/h2>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]