BAUTZEN, Germany—Ever since the populist far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party came onto the country’s political scene, there has been an explicit taboo among the other parties against collaborating with it˳ Leaders of the five main other parties in Germany’s Bundestag—the center-left Social Democratic Party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union bloc, the Greens, the pro-business Free Democratic Party, and the Left party—have vowed not to work with the AfD in any form, erecting what they refer to as a Brandmauer (or “firewall”) between them and the far-right party˳
But 10 years after the AfD’s founding, that so-called firewall is beginning to show cracks˳ The AfD has become both more successful and more radicalized in recent years˳ It has capitalized on a mix of anti-refugee sentiment, coronavirus skepticism, and economic insecurity to become the strongest party in two of five eastern German states and win double-digit support nationally˳ And it’s in places like Bautzen, this AfD stronghold of around 40,000 people in eastern Saxony, that the national parties’ commitment to isolating the AfD is breaking down˳
In December 2022, when the AfD proposed cutting benefits for refugees in the area to Bautzen’s district-level council, 19 members of the CDU voted in favor of the plan˳ Udo Witschas, one of the CDU representatives who backed the proposal, said he thought it was “completely fine” to vote with the AfD—and in a video published on his Facebook page, he echoed the kind of anti-refugee rhetoric common among the AfD˳ Speaking about the possibility of housing refugees in a nearby gym, Witschas said, “It is not our intention to let sports, whether school or leisure sports, bleed for this asylum policy˳”
The move made headlines and put national-level leaders of the CDU under pressure to condemn Witschas and others who voted with the AfD˳ But CDU chief Friedrich Merz, who had previously declared that any CDU politician working with the AfD would face expulsion from the party, notably remained silent˳ Since then, the members of the Bautzen CDU who voted for the proposal have not faced consequences within the party˳
The French came up with the idea of a cordon sanitaire in Central and Eastern Europe just after World War I to contain the spread of Bolshevism; in domestic politics, it came into vogue in Belgium in the 1980s to contain the contagion of extremist parties˳ It’s only gained importance in recent years as populist far-right parties make electoral gains across the continent˳ Germany, given its history, has stronger built-in protections against extremist political forces; in general, its politicians have taken a stricter approach than some of its neighbors˳
But as the vote in Bautzen shows, situations at the local and state level are starting to chip away at this cordon sanitaire˳ Whether on refugee issues, covered bus stops for school children, gender neutral language, or personnel decisions, members of Germany’s mainstream parties (particularly the CDU) have voted with the AfD on numerous local-level propositions and even a few state-level ones˳ These votes—while they may not get so much attention at the national level—work to normalize the party at the local level and, the AfD hopes, help lay the groundwork for them to govern˳
“It’s easier for the AfD to get normalized on these questions like a swimming pool or a soccer field or traffic jams because local politics is less about ideology and identity than is national politics,” said Johannes Hillje, a political consultant who has tracked extreme-right rhetoric in Germany˳ “And there, it’s a very good normalizing strategy for the AfD to show that they work on solving normal people’s problems—and it’s more difficult for other parties to argue why they resist the cooperation˳”
Discussion about Germany’s firewall comes as similar taboos have been broken across Europe, also largely by conservative parties˳ Last fall, Sweden’s center-right Moderate Party agreed to work informally with the populist far-right Sweden Democrats after the Sweden Democrats came in second in the country’s September 2022 parliamentary elections˳ Other countries, like Austria, have been including far-right parties in government for decades: The far-right Freedom Party first entered government with the conservative Austrian People’s Party in 2000—and again from 2017 to 2019˳ In Spain, the conservative People’s Party has been happy to team up with far-right Vox to secure power in a handful of regions˳
In Germany, the cordon sanitaire has held longer and is backed up by constitutional and legal protections against extremist forces put in place because of Germany’s Nazi past˳ Germany’s domestic intelligence service, for example, has the power to surveil and even ban political parties for extremist or anti-democratic behavior (which it is doing to the AfD), and the country has strict laws prohibiting hate speech˳ As a result, any party cooperating with the AfD, even informally or unintentionally, can face swift backlash˳ Three years ago, the CDU’s decision to vote with the AfD to oust the state of Thuringia’s left-wing premier caused a huge national controversy and led to the resignation of then-CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer˳
“There are, of course, policy incentives for the Christian Democrats to cooperate with the AfD,” said Marc Debus, a political scientist at the University of Mannheim who focuses on voter demographics˳ “That then creates some problems for the Christian Democrats in western Germany and on the national level˳”
But once a taboo has been broken at a certain level, future breaches of that taboo garner less attention˳ In Thuringia, the CDU proposed a law to end gender neutral language in November 2022, which the AfD supported˳ (The state-level CDU leader, Mario Voigt, justified it by saying his party can’t back down from its policy priorities “simply because we’re afraid of applause from the wrong side˳”) That, and other instances of voting together in Thuringia’s state parliament, have made headlines but not brought a full-out scandal to the national level˳
Part of the calculation for voting with or cooperating with the AfD, local-level politicians say, is a sheer numbers game˳ By now, the AfD has certainly become an established part of the political landscape in Bautzen: In the 2021 federal election, the AfD won a significant portion of the district that includes Bautzen, ahead of any other party˳
In the Bautzen City Council, the AfD holds 7 out of the 30 seats; when you include an AfD-leaning independent member and a local-level party that’s ideologically similar to the AfD, there are an additional eight members who often vote with them—half the council˳ Shutting the AfD out entirely makes it nearly impossible to get any work done˳
Strong support for the AfD in the east “increases the pressure on the CDU because the CDU might end up asking, in Saxony or especially in Thuringia, do we govern with the AfD, do we govern not at all, or do we govern with the Left party˳ This will create a huge conflict within the CDU,” Hillje said˳ “The CDU in that sense is sort of the gatekeeper for the whole democratic spectrum˳ It comes down to that in the end˳”
That’s true in Bautzen as well, where local politicians say there is a marked difference between the way the district-level party and the city-level party handle the AfD˳ At the district level, CDU politicians have no issue voting with the AfD and even sharing their rhetoric on certain issues; at the city level, Katja Gerhardi, leader of the CDU group in the city council, said she and her colleagues try to balance getting work done with not giving the party undue influence˳
“For me, the firewall means that I exclude any kind of cooperation with the AfD—I would never discuss joint motions with the AfD or things like that,” Gerhardi said˳ That said, “if the AfD submits a proposal that’s factual and that makes sense, of course I’ll vote in favor of this motion if it serves the city and serves the people of this city˳”
Still, Andrea Kubank, who sits on both the city and district council for the Left party, disagreed, saying on principle, she doesn’t vote for policies proposed by the AfD˳ “By pretending that they’re equal partners on the city council or the district council, by having that discourse with them, these private conversations—that has all led to this normalization [of the AfD],” Kubank said˳ “And that, I think, is very dangerous˳”
On a recent chilly, sunny afternoon, members of the city council in Bautzen, including Gerhardi and Kubank, gathered for their monthly meeting˳ When it came time for member inquiries, one AfD council member raised the issue of a local event that had been refused rental space over concerns about the speakers’ reported antisemitic backgrounds˳ This refusal to rent to the group, the AfD member said, was a violation of those citizens’ Meinungsfreiheit (or “freedom of opinion”), a common refrain among AfD members in the face of criticism from other parties˳
Council members from the mainstream parties—including the Left party, the Greens, and the CDU—presented a united front against the AfD, speaking out against the event and saying city hall was right not to give a platform to conspiracy theorists and openly antisemitic speakers˳
“We know that Bautzen is often referred to as a ‘brown nest,’” Gerhardi said˳ (The color brown typically refers to neo-Nazis)˳ “When we allow this, then we confirm this impression, and that’s not something we should do˳” Members of the AfD, and some members of the public in the audience, shook their heads or tried to interrupt her˳
With regional elections on the horizon in three eastern German states where the AfD is the strongest or second-strongest party in the polls—Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg—these questions about how and whether to work with the AfD are only becoming more urgent˳ Some people in Saxony’s CDU, for example, have openly mused about forming a state-level government with the AfD˳
In his speech commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the party’s founding this month, AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla nodded to those dynamics, declaring the party would be in government in the near future “first in a state in the east, and then in the west, and then nationally˳”
“There are some politicians who want to build firewalls,” he said˳ “We East Germans have experience with walls, and the last wall that was built in Germany [the Berlin Wall], … we East Germans tore it down˳”
