Guardian Commentary Explores Why East Germans Are Turning to AfD After Saxony-Anhalt Vote

The far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won a landslide victory in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt on 6 September, according to a commentary published by The Guardian written by Carolin Würfel, an author with an East German background. The party secured 44% of the vote on a record turnout, becoming the largest party in the state parliament, the piece states.

Würfel writes that if the AfD finds a path to power, it would mark the first time a far-right party has governed a German state since the Nazi era. She describes having feared the resurgence of a fascist movement in Germany since her youth, and says she spent days before the vote scrolling through videos, reports and interviews with AfD supporters on the ground.

According to the commentary, Würfel recognized many of the voters interviewed in the coverage, saying they could have been relatives, friends of her parents, former teachers or old schoolmates. She writes that she messaged a friend with a similar East German background the night before the election to ask whether she shared the same worry.

The commentary argues against the explanation that support for the AfD in eastern Germany stems from an inherited longing for dictatorship among a population that lived under Communist rule before German reunification. Instead, Würfel attributes the rise of what she describes as "grievance politics" in the east to other underlying factors, though the excerpt of the piece available does not fully detail her alternative explanation.

Würfel's commentary also states that west Germans have "hard questions to answer too," suggesting that the political and economic divide between the former West and East Germany continues to shape voting patterns more than three decades after reunification.

The AfD, which The Guardian describes as anti-immigrant and pro-Kremlin, has grown in electoral strength in several eastern German states in recent years. The Saxony-Anhalt result adds to a series of strong showings for the party in the region.