How Germany’s far right learned to put on a smile to win elections
Five years ago, the Alternative for Germany’s campaign posters in Saxony-Anhalt carried a single bleak word: “Enough.”
This month, the far-right party won a historic landslide in the eastern German state by offering something different: “Everything is Possible.” Arguably, it was an AfD version of Barack Obama’s 2008 rallying cry: “Yes We Can.”
That change — from grumbling exasperation to upbeat optimism — helps explain why the AfD has surged at the ballot box, putting its first state government within reach earlier this month in Saxony-Anhalt and setting it up to hit historic highs in two further state elections on Sunday, in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Others have taken note, and it might well serve as a new campaigning template for far-right populists across Europe — at least for those able to flash a credible smile.
“I call it feel-good populism,” said Johannes Hillje, a Berlin-based political consultant who managed the European Green Party’s 2014 European Parliament campaign. “What we saw was a new type of AfD campaign.”
“In the past it has been mainly negative rhetoric, scapegoating migrants, attacking the elite, evoking fear and rage,” Hillje added. “If you really want to mobilize people, it’s not enough just to attack others. You also have to offer a positive perspective.”
At its core, the AfD continues to hold a dark vision of Germany’s path — depicting the country as on the brink of catastrophe due to the destructive forces of migration and deindustrialization. The party’s intellectual ideologues espouse an almost apocalyptic view of the decline of Germany and the West.
Yet in recent elections, the party has papered over this ideological core with a cheerful, reassuring facade, seeking to marry hope with fear.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD’s lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund was labeled by one magazine “Germany’s most dangerous man.” But at campaign stops and in television appearances, he projected another image: He kept an almost permanent smile on his face, was invariably polite and friendly, took selfies with voters and rode his sky-blue vintage East German-era scooter.
Siegmund combined the forward-looking “Everything is Possible” with another slogan, “Bring Back the Good Old Times,” fusing nostalgia and hope, a powerful combination for people worried about the rapid pace of disruptive change and an uncertain future.
“He’s become a bit of a pop star, and that explains a lot about why the AfD doubled its vote,” said the German-British historian Katja Hoyer. “It also helps explain why there was a smaller gap between men and women in Saxony-Anhalt. In the national vote, far more men than women vote for the AfD.”
Hoyer believes the appeal won’t be confined to Germany. Others will learn from it.
In the summer of 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared that “the center is holding.” Following that year’s European Parliament elections, it seemed voters still largely backed centrist parties, despite significant gains by right-wing populists and national conservatives. But a succession of elections since then, including Saxony-Anhalt, has suggested that Europe may be further from peak populism than many centrists hoped.
Marco Tarchi, an Italian political scientist at the University of Florence, believes populism in Europe still has further to go. “Political narratives rather than policy details drive voter behavior,” he told POLITICO. For right-wing populists, he said, it will be crucial to ensure that their narratives focus on the issues potential voters deem most important.
Hoyer’s latest book, “Weimar,” chronicles interwar Germany and the rise of the Nazis through Weimar, the birthplace of the country’s first full democracy. She has closely observed this month’s state elections and, while dismissing comparisons with the late 1920s, acknowledged some parallels.
“There’s certainly something in the air that causes lots of politicians to refer to Weimar and to the Nazi era,” she said.
But she cautioned that the periods were very different, particularly when it came to political violence. “Whatever the similarities, we don’t see the AfD running around with armed people on the streets intimidating and murdering opponents,” she added.
But Hoyer sees one important echo: Voters worried about the future are looking to parties that offer a clearer vision than moderates. After the Wall Street crash, Germans got austerity from Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. Hitler, by contrast, promised: “Give me four years, and I will sort it all out,” she said.
“I fear there’s a similarity now,” she added. “People don’t see solutions coming from the mainstream parties, who point to geopolitics and say, ‘What can we do?’ Meanwhile, the AfD and some other right-wing populists say, ‘We will do X, Y, and Z.’”
“It doesn’t even have to be realistic,” she said. “I think people just want to feel that somebody has got some sort of plan.”
