MAGDEBURG, Germany | A Holocaust survivor and Germanyโs leading Jewish organization are sounding the alarm after the far-right Alternative for Germany won a historic election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, bringing the party within reach of governing a German state for the first time since the Second World War.
The AfD captured 43.8 percent of the vote in the Sept. 6 state election, more than doubling its 20.8 percent result in 2021. The result left the party well ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merzโs Christian Democratic Union, which received about 17 percent.
The AfD fell short of an outright majority, and whether it can assemble enough parliamentary support to govern remains unresolved. Germanyโs mainstream parties have maintained a political โfirewallโ against cooperation with the AfD, although the scale of its victory has placed that convention under renewed pressure.
For members of Germanyโs Jewish community and Holocaust survivors, however, the result has raised concerns extending beyond coalition arithmetic.
Eva Umlauf, an Auschwitz survivor who was two years old when she and her mother were liberated from the Nazi death camp in January 1945, said she was appalled by the election result.
โWhat can I say? I expected this, and yet Iโm appalled,โ Umlauf told Reuters. โI am appalled, I am saddened; I donโt know what drives people to vote for this party.โ
Umlauf, now 83, is a pediatrician and psychotherapist who lives in Munich and serves as president of the International Auschwitz Committee. She regularly visits schools to educate young Germans about the Holocaust.
โWeโre afraid. We know what happens,โ she said, referring to the historical consequences for minorities and foreigners when extremist political movements gain power.
Jewish Leaders Express Alarm
Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, also expressed alarm over the result.
The council has previously described the AfD as โa party where antisemites and far-right extremists have found a home.โ
Schuster said following the election that he was personally appalled by the outcome and warned particularly about the potential consequences of AfD influence over education and efforts to combat antisemitism.
The concerns are heightened by the official classification of the AfDโs Saxony-Anhalt branch.
The state Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germanyโs domestic intelligence authority, classifies the branch as right-wing extremist. The AfD disputes the designation, calling it politically motivated.
The AfD also rejects allegations that it is antisemitic and rejects comparisons between itself and the Nazi Party.
The party says its opponents exploit accusations of extremism and Germanyโs Nazi history to delegitimize millions of voters and suppress legitimate political opposition.
The disagreement therefore involves competing assessments of the AfD and its ideology. Jewish organizations, political opponents and Saxony-Anhaltโs domestic intelligence agency have raised serious concerns about extremism within the party, while the AfD denies that characterization and argues its policies represent views shared by millions of Germans.
Holocaust Memory Becomes Part of Political Dispute
Particular concern has focused on the AfDโs approach to Germanyโs historical memory.
The partyโs Saxony-Anhalt election program proposes what it calls a โpatriotic cultural policyโ that would shift some emphasis in history education away from the Nazi era and toward other periods and figures in German history, including 19th-century Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
It also proposes restoring military memorials to German soldiers killed during the First and Second World Wars.
Critics view such policies as part of a broader effort to weaken Germanyโs postwar culture of remembrance and reduce the prominence of Nazi crimes and the Holocaust in the countryโs national identity.
AfD figures have previously generated controversy with comments about Germanyโs Nazi past. In 2018, AfD politician Alexander Gauland described the Nazi period as a relatively small part of a much longer German history, using a crude expression that generated widespread condemnation.
For Holocaust survivors such as Umlauf, the political debate has deeply personal significance.
She was born in 1942 and deported to Auschwitz with her mother as a young child. More than eight decades later, she has dedicated part of her life to educating younger generations about what happened under Nazi rule.
The prospect of a party classified as right-wing extremist becoming the largest political force in a German state is something she said Holocaust survivors never expected to witness.
โThis election result makes us afraid,โ Umlauf said in remarks reported following the vote.
AfD More Than Doubles Its Support
The scale of the AfD victory represents a major transformation in Saxony-Anhalt politics.
The party increased its share of the vote from 20.8 percent in 2021 to 43.8 percent, while the CDU suffered a dramatic decline. Voter turnout reached approximately 78 percent.
The AfD campaigned heavily on immigration, public safety, economic frustration and opposition to Germanyโs political establishment.
Its platform includes tighter restrictions on immigration, restoring relations with Russia, reducing support for Ukraine and eventually leaving the euro.
The party has also sought to capitalize on frustration with the federal government and disillusionment among voters in eastern Germany.
Despite its electoral success, the AfD does not currently have enough seats to govern alone.
Chancellor Merz has reiterated that his CDU will not cooperate with the AfD, maintaining the longstanding firewall designed to keep the far right out of government.
Whether that firewall holds will determine if the AfDโs historic electoral victory translates into executive power.
First Far-Right State Government Since the War Remains Possible
No far-right party has governed a German state since the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
That historical reality gives the Saxony-Anhalt result significance far beyond the state itself.
The AfDโs 43.8 percent vote share leaves it close enough to a parliamentary majority that cooperation from another party or individual lawmakers could potentially allow it to form a government.
For Germanyโs Jewish community, the debate is unfolding during a period already marked by heightened concern about antisemitism.
Jewish communities across Europe have reported increased antisemitic incidents since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the war that followed. Antisemitism has emerged from multiple ideological sources, including the far right, radical Islamist movements and elements of the far left.
The AfD denies that it represents a threat to Jews and maintains that allegations of antisemitism and extremism are politically motivated.
Umlauf, while deeply disturbed by the Saxony-Anhalt result, said she does not believe the AfD represents most Germans.
Her hope now is that the partyโs rise will mobilize Germans who reject extremism.
For a Holocaust survivor liberated from Auschwitz more than 81 years ago, the election has nevertheless revived a question Germany has spent generations confronting: how firmly the lessons of its past will shape its political future.
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