The graffiti is 100 years old and has survived the Nazis, the Communists and the fall of the Wall in the centre of Weimar. “Vote for Thälmann” reads the red letters in favour of this trade unionist, who was a candidate in 1932 and shot by Hitler years later after inspiring the brigadiers in Spain. The ink seems to be coming back to life in the heat of these elections, in which Germany is shedding its skin.
The first results confirm what was expected. Thuringia, the first land Germany, where the Nazis formed part of the government in 1929, and Saxony – where they have only narrowly trailed the CDU – have put their faith in Alternative for Germany. Brandenburg, the third of the five states that once made up East Germany, votes in a few weeks and the autumn political calendar is full of crisis cabinets.
Germany is not an anomaly. Its symptoms fit with the malaise that afflicts the rest of the West. Disillusionment is brewing in the former GDR, the scar is still throbbing, although the economic data do not justify anger, nor does it justify bringing skeletons out of the closet. But in order not to repeat mistakes, memory is needed, and this is a delicate mix of facts and emotions. Lately, elections are based too much on the latter.
Nor are we facing a Weimar II. Social discontent and polarization are reminiscent of that era. The facts rhyme, but they are not repeated. We are not poisoned by the sting of a world war, inflation is tiny compared to that of those years and the current Constitution is a lesson learned from that experience.
But we should not dismiss or ignore what these results tell us. People generally do not like to vote for the far right. Hardly anyone admits to doing so. Most of those who vote for AfD do not consider themselves to be electing radicals, but men and women who care about their problems. Neither rural, nor male, nor elderly: the common denominator of these voters is the feeling that they are in the back row, their problems do not matter, their traditions are secondary and incompatible with what the country needs.
Extremists – their leaders are extremists: they qualify themselves with ideas like the re-immigration, a euphemism for forced repatriation – have put their ears to the ground and have sensed the change. There is a part of the population that wants more roots, considers the Greens’ zeal to be excessive and believes that the support for Ukraine, a war that is very close to home in Germany, is malicious. They are not consulted, they are not listened to, for them this is not democracy or democracy does not work.
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This malaise, exploited by the AfD or by another “alternative”, is here to stay. Either we govern with them, or the coalition that will have to be formed to contain them will be so large that decisions to govern cannot be taken. We must focus on the cause, not on the symptom. We must do street politics, visit the villages, talk to the people, choose these leaders well from among people with whom the voter can identify, not based on favours in the capital. This is now perhaps more uncomfortable and even dangerous than before, but it is the way out.
Many Germans and Austrians They fought in the Spanish Civil War to prevent the totalitarianism of their countries from spreading here, most of them enlisted in the battalion that bore the name of Thälmann. It is time to once again put our beards to soak.
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