Opinion: Fear won’t turn back right-wing advances in Germany

BACKGROUND INFORMATION SECTION

By Lucas Kemmesies

Never again is now in Germany 

Alternative for Germany (AfD) is on the march in the heart of Europe. The right-wing party, considered an extremist organization by Germany’s intelligence agency, has won two recent state elections in the country’s east and has fared well in the west. And now, for the first time since Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, a right-winger holds the seat of parliamentary speaker in a German state.
The advances by the anti-immigrant, Russia-friendly AfD have shocked mainstream German politicians – and the world. When the AfD’s Tobias Rausch was elected speaker of parliament in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, protesters held signs like “Never again is now” – a reference to Germany’s Nazi past. But the AfD is nevertheless poised to make even more gains in Saxony-Anhalt as state party leader Ulrich Siegmund seeks election as state premier in December.

About the Author

Lucas Kemmesies is a prominent member of Volt, a progressive, eurofederalist party that is active throughout Europe. He serves as city councilor in Magdeburg, the state capital of the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, and is co-chair of the state’s Volt chapter.
By profession, Kemmesies is a doctor of anesthesiology at Magdeburg Universeity Hospital. He also sits on the state executive board of the Hartmannbund Saxony-Anhalt, a professional organization for doctors.

Key Takeaways

The recent electoral gains by the extreme right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party are alarming. But if our response is simply to be shocked by the outcomes, scold those who voted for them, and then return to politics as usual, we will have accomplished very little. 

I write this from Magdeburg, the capital of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where I serve on the city council for the Volt party. As co-chair of the progressive, eurofederalist party’s state chapter, I also led Volt in the September 6 elections that AfD won by a landslide. 

But politics is only one part of how I experience what is happening around us. I am a doctor and a father. Every day, in different ways, these roles bring me into contact with people whose lives rarely fit neatly into political categories. 

And what I see is a society becoming more uncertain about its future – and, increasingly, uncertain about itself. 

There is no disputing AfD’s overwhelming victory last month. It took 43.8 percent of the vote, simple as that. Voter turnout in Saxony-Anhalt was nearly 78 percent, compared to just over 60 percent in 2021, and the results left the party just three seats short of an absolute majority. 

The AfD followed up with another big win two weeks later in another eastern state, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. And on October 6, the AfD’s Tobias Raush was elected as speaker of Saxony-Anhalt’s state parliament, marking the first time since World War II that a state parliament has chosen a speaker from the far-right. 

The stage is now set for an even bigger prize: in December AfD leader Ulrich Siegmund plans to seek election as the state’s premier.

Don’t assume this is an eastern German thing

It would be easy to write off the advances as a phenomenon isolated to the former communist eastern Germany, but that would be a dangerous assumption. Local elections in the northwestern state of Lower Saxony on September 13, where the AfD finished third, serve as fair warning. 

For those of us involved in local politics, these are not abstract results. They change the atmosphere in council chambers, neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. They affect the conversations people have with one another and, perhaps most importantly, the assumptions people make about who belongs.  

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It would be comforting to believe that millions of AfD voters have simply been manipulated by social media or radical rhetoric. But the reality is harsher. 

There is profound dissatisfaction in parts of Germany. People see infrastructure deteriorating, public services becoming harder to access, and bureaucracy taking too long. In many communities, citizens have the impression that political decisions are being made by people who don’t care – or care to understand – how those decisions affect ordinary lives.

Immigration is part of this conversation too, and democratic parties make a serious mistake when they pretend otherwise. 

People are entitled to expect a functioning immigration system. They are entitled to ask how immigration is managed and how integration is supposed to work. Acknowledging these concerns does not require accepting the answers offered by AfD’s Moscow-friendly, anti-immigrant platform.

Support for the AfD is strongest in East Germany. That’s being used by some to argue AfD support isn’t about migration. I think that’s mistaken. This is just about rural versus urban. Rural voters are more conservative and oppose irregular migration… https://t.co/v6C7L8DI4m https://t.co/GZ3UVPkUmb

— Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) September 20, 2026

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What worries me most is what these results communicate to the nurse from Syria, the engineer from India, the student from Ukraine, the shopkeeper whose parents came from Vietnam, or the German child who happens to have darker skin. 

Many of these people are not watching this debate from the outside. They are our neighbours, colleagues, patients, classmates and friends. Some were born here. Some have German citizenship. Some arrived recently. They pay taxes, start businesses, work in our hospitals and care homes, and raise their children here. 

Now, they ask a very simple question: Are we not wanted here?

Immigrants play a huge role in our health and future

Germany is an aging country. Our hospitals, companies, universities, and care system already depend on people who have come here from elsewhere. If those people begin to believe that Germany does not offer them or their children a future, the consequences will not only be moral. They will be economic and social. 

As a doctor, I find this especially tangible. A health system does not function because of political slogans. It functions because people show up: cleaners, caregivers, physicians, technicians, nurses, and countless others. Many have immigrant backgrounds. 

There is a temptation, particularly among those of us who strongly oppose the AfD, to make the AfD itself the center of our politics. I think that is a mistake. Democracy ultimately has to offer something more compelling than fear of its alternative. 

That means being willing to speak up when something is not working. People can tolerate difficult political decisions. What they find much harder to tolerate is the feeling that obvious problems are being ignored. 

Reunification requires shared acceptance of serious issues

Eastern Germany deserves more than explanations from Berlin. This is particularly important where I live. 

More than three decades after reunification, there remain experiences in eastern Germany that national political debate too often reduces to statistics. Entire biographies were disrupted after 1990. Industries disappeared. Communities lost young people. Many families experienced transformation not as an academic concept but as unemployment, departure, and loss of status. 

That history does not predetermine anyone’s vote, nor does it excuse extremism. But political trust has a history. If democratic parties want to regain voters in places such as Saxony-Anhalt, they cannot arrive shortly before an election with a campaign slogan and disappear afterward. Political credibility has to be rebuilt locally, over years. 

For Volt, there is another dimension to this. 

The challenges feeding political frustration are not uniquely German. Europe is dealing simultaneously with immigration, demographic change, war on our continent, economic competition with the United States and China, climate change, and technological disruption. 

Retreating behind national borders will not make these pressures disappear. 

A collective European response to Europe’s problems

We need European solutions where the problems are European: protecting our external borders while maintaining the right to asylum; creating legal migration routes linked to labor-market needs; strengthening European defence; investing jointly in energy and infrastructure; and ensuring that regions undergoing economic transformation are not simply left behind.  

As a politician, I worry about electoral numbers. 

As a doctor, I worry about what happens when trust between people and institutions breaks down. 

And as a father, I think about what kind of country all of our children will inherit. 

I want them to grow up in a Germany where disagreement is normal but dehumanisation is not; where somebody can demand stricter migration policies without treating immigrants as lesser human beings; where a person can criticize government without losing faith in democracy itself; and where being German is not determined by somebody’s surname, skin color, or where their parents were born. 

The AfD’s gains should therefore be taken seriously – but not fatalistically. The responsibility of democratic politics is not to dismiss AfD voters by telling them they are wrong. Nor is it to adopt some of the populist positions taken by the AfD in the hope of winning them back.

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It is to understand why so many people have concluded that the existing political system is no longer working for them – and then demonstrate, through competent government and presence in their communities, that democracy can work. 

That is a much harder task than producing another campaign against the far and the extremist right. 

It is also the only task that matters in the long run. Therefore, I will repeat the motto of our campaign in Saxony-Anhalt: “Fear is not a solution!” I hope it will inspire more politically interested people to act on it: Think European, act locally!