The far-right has doubled its support in Germany. But they're no more popular than the left, and 80% did not vote for fascists. What are the lessons to learn, especially in the UK?
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This is the transcript:
Twenty per cent of people voted fascist in Germany last weekend. And that sounds really profoundly worrying. And I think it really is deeply concerning. But before we get too alarmed, let me offer you some other statistics.
At least 20 per cent of people in Germany voted for parties from the left, whether that be the Greens or Die Linke, which is literally the Left party in Germany.
They will have together almost exactly the same number of seats as the AfD, the Allianz for Germany, which is going to have around 150 seats, just as those two left wing parties will.
In between the two, there has been a switch from the sort of left-of-centre SPD - which is, frankly, in my opinion, to the right of centre - to the CDU, which is the Christian Democrats, who are more like the Conservatives in the UK.
So the neoliberals won around 50 per cent, or just over of the vote in Germany. The far-right won 20%. The left won 20%, and a few other parties picked up some votes as well.
But let's just look at that point. The far right are getting all the attention for winning 20%, but properly left-wing parties also 20%.
There isn't, therefore, the imbalance that one would think from the media that exists within German society.
What we're actually seeing is that at least 40 per cent of people in Germany know that neoliberalism is not delivering for them.
Those people are mainly on lower incomes or they're the young. And both groups in German society are right. Neoliberalism isn't delivering for them.
The old model of a safe party that tries to support industry and wealth and lets everybody trail along behind it is leaving a lot of people trailing in its wake. Sufficient in the middle class will still vote for stability to allow the leadership in the Grand Coalition, which is going to be governing Germany yet again between the CDU and the SPD. That coalition is going to continue because enough comfortable people will still vote for it.
But there's discomfort. And the discomfort is genuine, and it's with that single transferable party, which the CDU and the SPD represent because both of them are neoliberal to their core. They are trying to maintain a status quo that is all about a power structure that basically says bankers should rule, big business should dominate the scene, and everybody else should accept whatever they get.
And people aren't willing to do that, and I don't blame them. Because this is an unfair society that creates inequality and has no desire to do anything about it.
But let's be clear: the AFD in Germany is deeply unpopular. Now, I'm not pretending that Die Linke is that popular, and the Greens have been in and out of favour with the German population over time because they have sometimes held some rather odd positions, particularly when taking part in government coalitions.
But my point is that the disquiet is real. The number of people voting for the centrist coalition is declining. It may have swapped its leadership at present. But the need for real reform is absolute. But at the same time, that real reform is by no means necessarily what the AFD, the right-wing fascist party of Germany, is wanting, desiring, or proposing, because there are alternatives.
The great advantage that Germany has over a country, for example, like the UK, is that in Germany, there is a left-of-centre alternative. Precisely because they have proportional representation, they are in the situation that parties who are genuinely across the political spectrum can be heard.
Now, I'm not opposed to that. I will always oppose fascists. I hate what they stand for. I hate their indifference to people. The fact that they deliberately make not caring into a political ideology. To me that is the antithesis of what civilization is all about. But because Germany has a proportional representation system where they get a voice, those on the left who want a voice get one as well. And that is important.
And it's important for me in a very particular context. Because if I bring this to the UK, there is no such choice. In the UK, we have three mainstream parties, plus maybe another fourth, okay, Scottish based party. But if we look at those four parties together, be they Labour in the lead at present, and then the Tories next, and then the Liberal Democrats, and quite possibly the SNP, whose membership is very definitely not neoliberal, but whose leadership has been for some time, then if we look at them together, they represent that centre ground coalition, which is very much where the Christian Democrats and the SPD, the Social Democrats in Germany, are, offering an almost perpetual single transferable party, where nothing really changes despite an election and the bankers continue to rule, money continues to get its way, the wealthy continue to get wealthier, and everybody else trails in their wake.
We have that problem in British politics and Nigel Farage is, in his latest incarnation, and who knows how many more there might be, challenging that consensus from the right, and up to 25 per cent of people in the UK are expressing a willingness to vote for Farage, but that figure is actually bigger than the number who are willing to vote for the fascists in Germany.
And why is that? Well, it's literally because there is no left wing alternative to the centrist coalition of Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrats and maybe SNP in this country. They are making sure that the left is entirely eliminated from UK politics.
And that is our problem, because there is no narrative that is actually capable of appealing to people who want an alternative to what they offer, but which comes from a dimension of caring, which is what the left are offering in Germany. They're having to move to the right to try to oppose this narrative, which is that bankers must continue to rule.
And that is the UK political problem. Without proportional representation, without the willingness of any party to go towards the left at all in pursuit of votes, there are just very large numbers of people in this country who have literally no political representation at all. And some of them are therefore resorting to voting for Farage, not because they do necessarily agree with him, because I think some don't really, but because they want to get rid of the mainstream parties who are clearly failing them. And without proportional representation, this is going to continue because none of those parties are showing any willingness whatsoever to move towards the left to find any political solution or to win votes. They all seem to think that their goal is to take votes from Farage, and that is absolutely ludicrous because he's going to win up to 20 per cent, come what may.
But he won't win more than 20 per cent because, frankly, that form of extremism cannot secure more votes than that. And yet they won't go out into the decent majority of people in the UK who are so alienated by what all of these parties are talking about, and in particular what Labour and the Tories are talking about when they say there's no money left and we can't have decent public services and we've got to lock up people who do protests, unless they're farmers of course, when it's just fine, and they're really fed up with them. But there's no chance of saying that.
So, which country is in a worse political position? Germany, which has now got 20 per cent of fascists in its parliament, balanced by 20 per cent of motivated left-wingers, and a centre ground which has very little more idea to go on now than it had last week, or the UK where there is no left option available at all, in any real sense, because the Greens do not appear to have the capacity to turn themselves into anything like a viable mainstream political party.
It's the UK that's in deepest trouble. And we need to do something about it, and we need to have that voice on the left, the moderate left, not hard left, but a place where people who care can actually express that fact, because none of our politicians do. And without that option, I have no idea where British politics is going.
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A thoughtful post.
I would say that UK politics seems very much like American politics at the moment and that is where the clue is.
Both have a politics driven by money with little or no safe guards like an ex-fascist state like Germany might have had inserted into its democratic workings after the war. Power is over centralised in the UK, especially since Thatcher and the local government hating Nicholas Ridley. And the nuances of fascism have been overlooked in the media and politics of the UK for too long. The pro-fascist tendency has always been there over here.
We need a Jane Fonda party.
For those who DO give a damn about other people.
Well, I think we did have a party that cared about people until socialism became a dirty word in the leadership of the Labour Party. The members didn’t want the lurch to the right. If only it could be reclaimed, it would again be the party for those of us who care.
The analysis at the Political Compass website is very interesting:
https://www.politicalcompass.org/germany2025
The only left liberal party are Die Linke, who occupy a similar policy position as the Greens in the UK. AfD, CDU & CSU are all clearly authoritarian right, the only main difference is that AfD are prepared to be explicitly nasty to their scapegoats.
In the UK under FPTP the Single Transferable Party stays in power when it switches from its Labour to Conservative guises from one election to another. While I fully support the idea of PR for the UK, these figures from Germany make me wonder if, under PR, the UK might see the Single Transferable Party preserving it’s preeminence in the German way – by forming a grand coalition of neoliberals, albeit out of the splintered remains of the neoliberal elements of the current main UK parties? In that scenario the potentially larger vote share for left of centre or non-neoliberal politics that may ensure from a more honest voting system may just act as a pressure valve, without offering hope of real change. Having said that, I still see PR as an essential component of a robust democracy.
The post was a fair stab at answering the “what the hell is going on”.
I am in favour of PR, but as Germany shows, it ain’t an answer. Indeed, the mainstream parties (De Linke excepted) and AfD sit on a neo-libtard spectrum (no apologies for the moniker it decribes exactly what they are) – with AfD sitting at the extreme end and the CDU/CSU + Socialists in the middle, supported by a mostly brainwashed German citizenry. I know, I have regular 2 hour sessions with one of em – ex-accountant & very much ordo-liberal, I do my best to over turn some of his daft assumptions.
Is this so different in FPTF UK? The Deform idiots are not so different from AfD – both think markets (utopia) is the answer to everything. Hmm, wonder how that is going to play out as Chinese Elec vehicles eviscerate the German car industry. In both countries, the body politsic is infested with lobby-rats (USA even worse) which turns politicos into weather vanes. This reality further amplified by a branch of the world’s oldest “profession” – the large consultancies.
Rant over & on a lighter note (I really needed a laugh this morning):
https://www.latintimes.com/anti-elon-musk-group-goes-viral-swasticar-ad-after-german-election-0-1939-3-seconds-576635#slideshow/571149
The Tesla ad is brilliant.
Hmmm……………..
What the hell is going on is this:
If that 20% can outspend and out-think the 80% then the 20% will become 50% and larger.
Then, add a big handful of Neo-liberal/ordoliberal orthodoxy and dogma and hey presto!!
This is how you get Trump, this how you got BREXIT.
These are the new rules of play.
But the AfD are only in what was once EST Germany
What I’m getting at is the ability of the extreme right to get traction it seems to me anywhere. We must not underestimate that, nor the political rigidity that acts as its handmaiden, helps it on by doing nothing.
Noted
Another important point you overlooked is where the Afd’s support lies and the other parties.
Basically the old DDR supported Afd (outside of Berlin, a left-leaning city) but the old West Germany didn’t.
It’s like the UK’s London & SE bias, the former east has been starved of the levels of inward investment needed and that is turning such regions towards the empty promises and negative-politics of the fascists.
Again, the rise of the right could have avoided by proper ‘wealth distribution’.
There are limits on what can be done in a reasonable length
You are right on this
In fairness, they’ve had 35 years since the fall of the wall.
Thank you John for pointing this out. I was surprised to see the very specific distribution of party votes across Germany, as I don’t recall hearing it reported that AFD is almost exclusive to the former east zone. The Guardian had an interactive map yesterday that showed exactly where support lies for all the parties, and it is quite instructive. Die Linke in Berlin, and a tiny pocket in Leipzig, surrounded by AFD!
The map should be available here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/feb/24/german-election-live-results-updates-2025-cdu-afd-widel?page=with%3Ablock-67bc4c9c8f08c265a15cbaff&filterKeyEvents=false#liveblog-navigation
Thanks
Only that for Germany this really doesn’t stand. Federal investment pro capita in ex-DDR federal states is far higher than in ex-Bonn Republic states. Infrastructure in the East is superb compared to the infrastructure in the West. Ex-DDR states had a nasty stretch in early 90’s with loads of people leaving for the West. When that happens you find yourself in the spiral of young, productive, more liberal-minded people leaving and only older, more reactionary people staying. There won’t be much non-governmental investment in such an environment. Ex-DDR states population numbers have decreased up to one third, more than half in countryside – that part of Germany’s practically deserted (while some cities in the East are doing quite well – such as Leipzig, Magdeburg or Potsdam, but they’re not AfD terrains). Today Bavaria (which is not the most populous Western state) on its own has got more inhabitants than all ex-DDR states put together.
And then there’s history. Nazis did well in what are now Eastern states. They were winning big in Thuringia or Saxony in the beginning when not so much in the West.
Forgive me for being slightly O/T, but I’m concerned about the latest Scottish polling figures. If you add up the support for parties which I would consider centre/right wing, the Conservatives, Labour, LibDems and Reform, they poll almost 60%. Against that, the centre left, the S.N.P/Greens, poll less that 50%. Of course it depends on the number of seats gained, but could this be a concern? I ask this because in some councils in Scotland where the S.N.P have a majority of seats, the centre right parties have banded together to take control. If the figures are correct, could this happen in the Scottish Parliament?
Yes
It could
The unionists might try that
Its as if there is a conspiracy in plain sight to big up the far right in UK and Europe . OK Reform and AfD are increasing their support but why only platform them – with the implied narrative that they are the ‘only alternative’ to the mainstream parties.
You have had to listen really carefully to spot that die Linke almost doubled their vote – in the same way as AfD did. BBC has had several interviews with AfD people – but non with the left/Greens.
The danger in leaving AfD out of govt is that when the two big parties fail – AfD ‘s hands will be clean – and who else to vote for?
But its very pertinent of Richard to remind us that ‘ the left’ at present has as much support as the far right.
Thanks
But – AfD aren’t increasing their support. Their support has been pretty constant at 20 per cent for about two years now. They also won about 16 per cent at the last federal election Merkel won, this then decreased to 10 per cent at the election 4 years ago, and then started rising shortly after that election and came to 20 per cent about a year and half ago and has been stagnant ever since, And German polling’s really good – it generally predicts the results of their elections to a per cent.
Thanks
As much as I dislike the idea,is it time to make voting mandatory?
Yes
Be careful what you wish for , you might not like the new voters too much .
Why?
What are you suggesting?
I don’;t like the inference that there are people we would rather not vote.
Denmark seems to have a left wing party as their major in government and it’s doing quite well in large part due enforcing border controls and applying the law to immigrants who break it.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20250224/swedes-rate-denmarks-pm-their-second-most-trusted-international-leader
Sort of…..but Denmark is quite insular
As for compulsory voting, I’ve voted at all elections since Feb. 1974. What makes you think, bizarrely, that another infringement of civil liberties – this must be the 100th. or 200th. idea since Blair and Thatcher – will increase confidence in so-called democracy? I’ve rarely heard of anything so silly.
Tell that to Australia where voting is compulsory, inclduing for citzens overseas.
The only person being silly here is you – and you clearly hate demcracy and civil liberties.
The East Germany geographic concentrated spread of AFD votes is very suspicious, perhaps voter registration or other foul play there. On the subject of fascists manipulating voting processes to maximise their voter share. Have you seen the Greg Pallast YouTube material on the successful voter deregistration purge by USA republicans that removed 2 million ballots of mainly Black, Hispanic and young people in 2024 election. That’s now documenting how trump won illegally. Then there was the voter ID scam here in U.K. trying to something similar but not as successful.
I hate (not!) to dismantle your conspiracy myth. I’ve read the report by Greg Palast and was quite shocked, so I know what you’re talking about.
I am convinced no relevant manipulation of voter registers is possible in Germany. This is because we (unlike UK and US) have a mandatory residence registration, and the electoral roll/voter lists are derived from that, for each election at a cut-off date beforehand. You cannot de-register from one place (unless moving out of the country) and nobody else can de-register you because de-registering is done by inter-admin note when registering in your new place – and you need to present evidence of living there to the municipal office when doing so. In case of two residences, one and only one must be designated the main residence, and this is the one you get put on the electoral roll and get your voter invitation sent to – automatically. Yes, every resident citizen gets a personalized letter inviting them to vote, detailing the place and time and that letter also contains the application form for mail-in voting, or to get a voter certificate issued for other reason (that can be requested online too). And there are enough voting offices that you can likely just walk there if you don’t live in the boonies. So the ability to participate in the election is very robust.
One challenge due to the extraordinary election this time was that the period to perform mail-in voting was reduced. The constitution requires the election be held within 60 days after “dismissal” of parliament (I put quotes because the parliament remains in office acting until the new parliament was elected and convenes the first time; as does the government after the vote of distrust until a new one was approved by the parliament – so we do not have a parliament-less time and also not a government-less time), and in that period: 1. non-incumbent parties must get time to collect the required number of supporter signatures to be admitted to take part; 2. parties need to sort themselves and decide on the direct candidates in each constituency and on the party candidate list per Bundesland and submit these; 3. the lists need to be checked by the electoral officers; 4. the voting sheets need to be compiled and sent for printing; 5. the prints need to be delivered to the municipalities; 6. now the mail-in voting sets can be sent out to those who requested them – this happened in the third week, i.e. two weeks and a bit before the election this time. For normal elections it would happen a month ahead.
We are very old fashioned in our voting mechanism, it’s all done with paper, there are no voting machines, and both the voting time (0800-1800 on the day) and the subsequent counting is public and can be observed by anyone. The voting sheets are all properly archived for review. Mail-in voting is also very well documented, each rejected submission must be documented giving a reason and archived for later review. The process is prescribed and gives clear rules to the counting committee on site. In particular, the eligibility of the voter certificate is checked in a step separate from the opening and counting of the voting sheet (surname only is enough for a valid signature, btw, we rarely use middle initials in Germany anyway). We have a double-envelope scheme: the outer envelope contains the voting certificate needed for mail-in voting, signed by the voter, and a sealed envelope with the voting sheet. After checking the eligibility with positive result, the envelope with the voting sheet gets thrown in the “good” pile before being opened. So when checking eligibility, the vote is unknown and cannot be backreferenced. (When a voting certificate is issued, the voter entry in the electoral roll is marked to prevent double voting on site, but one can also present the voting certificate on site if it was not mailed away with the mail-in vote due to a change of plans).
In the Sachsen election of that land’s parliament last autumn, there have been cases of vote manipulation by the Freie Sachsen, a small and very fascist party, by blatantly placing stickers with a cross for themselves on top of voting sheets. That was discovered and could only happen in the first place because unfortunately some municipalities are already full of nazis and no lefties feel it would be good for their health to come observe the counting there very closely.
Unfortunately, the strong results of AfD in the East are plausible. We had a barrage of “migrants are a problem” messages both from politics and the media, based on several unfortunate incidents involving immigrants, but femicide by partners, knife murders by Germans, deaths in traffic and various others don’t get any attention, so it’s blown out of proportion. Ironically that gains traction in particular in regions that have hardly any immigrants, because once you get to know them, you see they’re humans as we all. Politicians outbid each other how to mistreat foreigners and close borders and increase surveillance when all this can be proven not to have prevented the cases they are referencing. That created a climate of distrust and anxiety that fascists are perceived to have a solution for. looking at the constituencies won, the map looks like sharply divided West/East, with AfD ruling the East and CDU/CSU strong in the West (and fully covering Bavaria, sigh), but if you look at the percentage figures they aren’t that much different. The Union has generations of familiarity in the West in their favour and that helps especially the first (constituency) vote. Whereas in the East there has been a CDU “block party” (the pretend parties the GDR had to justify the “democratic” attribute in their name) during GDR so all the established parties are looked at with some disdain even today, also party membership is much lower, less likely that “you know that guy”. and a “fresh” party has it easier there. If only they looked at that party’s programme, they’d realize that it will do zero for them, but it’s a feelings thing not a rational thing.
Wow, that was some rant, sorry for the length.
Thanks
Thank you for your thoughts. I feel that you misrepresent some aspects of the German parties.
* The Grüne come from a clearly left, environmentalist and pacifist origin but have evolved over the decades to a moderate-left social and environment-conscious party and have their main voters in well-educated and fairly well-off urban people. Within the “Ampel” (traffic light) coalition up to now, they’ve agreed to lots of non-left decisions: being nasty to immigrants, setbacks for climate protection, restoring nastiness to benefits recipients. Some also object to their support for military build-up. And they have stated their willingness to form a coalition with the Union despite their recent deliberate vote together with the AfD, breaking with various commitments. So lumping them together with the Linke doesn’t feel appropriate to me.
* while I agree with you that the SPD is right-of-center by now, I refuse to lump them under the neoliberal label. Maybe like Labour in UK, they’ve sort of swerved right and left over time, Schröder and his promotion of precarious jobs subsidised by meager “top-up” benefits stands for the right-most turning point, and there is much regret of this within SPD, and subsequent support for union tariff applicability and minimum wage introduction and increase show that they’ve come back from that extreme some. There is again support for social aspects, and the more robust “Bürgergeld” (state benefit for those falling out of or not entitled to unemployment benefit and being poor – it always included a provision “use up your own means first”) agreed among the Ampel was originally fully supported by both Grüne and SPD, but they succumbed to pressure by the right parties and the FDP to pretty much revert the improvements and add draconic penalties for “lack of cooperation” again.
* the FDP by the way, we know in hindsight was not just accidentally, but planfully and consistently disrupting many objectives they had previously agreed to when forming the coalition. I am convinced the broad dissatisfaction with the Ampel can largely be attributed to that. Personally, I’m quite happy that Lindner and his conspirators have been punished by the voters, and hope the FDP will reform itself back to a broad-range liberal, also civic rights party, instead of narrowing themselves to a libertarian/neoliberal and state-dismantling movement that our democracy does not need.
Note also that the Ampel had to work under the “debt limit” much more stringent than that imposed by the EU and inherited from CDU/CSU led governments which greatly hampered their ability of public spending, interpreted strictly and unhelpfully by both the finance minister of the FDP and by the opposition.
From a stability point of view, I feel it positive that the “black-red” coalition (which used to be called “Große Koalition” when Union and SPD were the biggest parties but feels hardly fitting for the diminished SPD) has a majority, from the programmes I cannot be happy and I hope that much of the nonsense spouted by Merz and his men will not become policy, as it would be detrimental to Germany and Europe.
By the way, AfD is the abbreviation of “Alternative für Deutschland”, not Allianz. Of course they do not offer any alternative solution, neither for the real problems at hand nor for the problems they claim to be the most pressing ones. Fascists aren’t about solutions, only about hate and rage and an imagined (past) state of comfort that they do not have a way of achieving/restoring (if that mix of nostalgia has ever existed at any one time).
Regarding your comparison with FPTP in UK, while I see that it tends to hamper progressive voices, it also keeps the fascists at bay – as long as they don’t gain too much momentum and win numerous constituencies. Whereas we now have a 20% block that will always add harmful noise to the parliament but also that is fed by generous allowances for MPs and their staff – and those guys’ “staff” is thugs that really don’t deserve public funding. They’ve also been known to bring “visitors” into the parliament hallways that threaten other MPs and misbehave. I do not consider the situation pretty. But honestly, I wouldn’t want to swap, either!
I agree re the Greens – some of whom I know
We’ll have to disagree on the SPD – because it is, like Labour, very neoliberal, in my opinion.
But thanks
Fascinating insights to the German system, thanks all.
While I totally support getting everybody registered to vote, and making it easy for them to get to the polls and/or vote by post, I am not a supporter of mandatory voting.
I have no problem excluding people who can’t be bothered to vote.
However, I believe the main cause of present voter disinterest is not apathy. It’s because nothing changes, no matter who wins at Westminster. Tories and Labour are busy rubber-stamping each other’s harmful policies, while LibDems seem content to just be kingmakers, if there is the need.
We should have credible parties from the entire spectrum on the UK ballot. We badly need a leftist party to fill the gap that Labour used to fill. Leftist UK voters have nobody to vote for any more.
At present, the two main UK-wide parties serve the same masters, and their record in government shows they ARE more or less the same. It’s understandable if stay-home voters simply stay home. Except for the now-dangerously popular right-wing Reform party, what viable choice has England got? That’s the issue—in my opinion, anyway. I am so glad I live in Scotland and have the SNP to vote for. If I lived in England just now, I, too, would be sorely tempted to stay home.
Real old-style Labour politicians and people should form a new “Labour” party, PDQ. Give English voters a real choice next time. That would cause a surge of interest in voting again, I reckon.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in (West) Germany and Berlin – the latter both before and after the Wall came down. For anyone who has had no experience of the Berlin Wall and/or the Inner German Border, I can assure you they were terrifying structures. Up close, or as close as one could get, the feeling of malign power was palpable. Not so much from the East German border guards on the other side of the IGB wire, who were mostly conscripts, but from the Russian officers around Checkpoint Charlie and in East Berlin. They were overtly hostile. It may not have been an active war zone, but it was very ready to become one. I blagged a helicopter ride with 7 AAC around the top of the Wall and although we kept just inside our own airspace, the (fully loaded) East German artillery batteries tracked us the whole way. The British military train to and from Berlin was locked, chained and had armed guards.
The contrast between that and 1991 when I next went was staggering. People were lighthearted and talkative. And and and. I went again on a number of occasions; gradually the mood subtly altered. The West Berliners began to resent the Osties – taxi drivers started to complain about the huge amount of money flowing Eastwards to bring it up to economic parity with the West of Germany. Westies felt that the converse was happening – they were being brought down to the level of the Osties. Resentment grew in both “camps”.
Merkel opened the borders in ?2015. Migrants were often settled in the Eastern part of Germany; which fuelled tensions. More resentment – less wealth.
And into that pot stepped the AfD.
Young people in the Western part of Germany (and possibly Europe generally) are politically informed in a way that puts the UK to shame. They are politically active and they care about their country. I have not seen that quite as much in the East, although I’m generalising a bit. However, I note that those who voted for the AfD follow almost exactly the dividing line of the old IGB. I’m not surprised by that – they were ripe for the picking. And whatever else the AfD may be, their leaders are not stupid. They saw a captive audience and they struck.
Thanks
And you may remember the lorry which drove into the Christmas Market in Berlin in 2016. I had been sitting in the very hut which was demolished and the people inside killed about 2 hours before it happened. In a bitter irony, it was right next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, which was left in ruins after WWII as a signal for peace. The attacker was a failed asylum seeker, claiming to be from the Islamic State of Iraq.
I have wondered if the attacks prior to Sunday’s election were false flags arranged by the AfD, but I’m probably wrong.