The articles trace a shift in German political attitudes toward both immigration and the far right. Most striking is the growing regional cooperation between AfD and the CDU, the country’s traditional party of government. The Brandmauer (“firewall”), the principle of non-collaboration with far-right extremism, is breaking down. In efforts to make their views more palatable to a roaring German nationalist sentiment, traditional parties are making pacts with AfD.
“My party doesn’t speak the language of the people on the streets,” says Markus Töns of Gelsenkirchen’s SPD.
Töns criticises a national party out of tune with voter perceptions, but the question remains: should parties align themselves with street-level far-right sensationalism?
Back in 2025, the Courthouse News made a premonitory claim: “People are afraid of a further deepening gap in society due to polarization”. Trends in voter intent show the divide is now palpable at the state level. The Economist argues AfD’s rise does not necessarily signal a “blue wave” but a “growing apart” of communities. To make the point, it paints a grim picture of Gelsenkirchen as a town stripped to its bare bones; in contrast with richer, graduate-heavy cities like Cologne, Bonn and Münster, the AfD underperformed. Likewise, CNN attributes the party’s strength in Eastern Germany to economic disparity and the carrying of a communist legacy. That explains why Saxony-Anhalt shows 40% voting intention for AfD, but fails to account for growing affinity in Western Germany: in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, the swings were 9% and 11%, respectively.
The Economist also calls out the growing pro-Russia sentiment. Officials in Gelsenkirchen, where AfD has secured one-third of seats, are seeing a push for discourse against Germany’s support for Ukraine. In the east, where the AfD is strongest, CDU politicians have adopted positions “friendlier to the Kremlin than their party leaders in Berlin might like”. In the Ruhr, local SPD campaigns for stricter immigration policy than the national party does.
Importantly, this deepening collaboration entrenches a division of immigrants into wanted and unwanted. The AfD’s election manifesto is explicit about who should be allowed to enter, remain and work— a warm welcome for “European skilled workers” and a points system for non-EU migrants.
The party also advocates a German Germany. Central to its programme is “Leitkultur,” or leading culture: the protection of Germany’s culture and language and their establishment as dominant, so that everyone adopts “the values and morals seen to be inherently ‘German’”. By demanding that immigrants assimilate to this dominant culture, Leitkultur echoes the National Socialist ideal of cultural and racial homogeneity. CNN reads it similarly, noting that remigration carries inherent “Nazi connotations”.
Unsurprisingly, the AfD’s language on reclaiming living spaces for German-born citizens resonates heavily with nationalist sentiment. The AfD’s aim of letting “each German citizen build their own four walls instead of living as renters” and the party’s calls for cutting ties with the EU in pro of a “sovereign Germany” and a “Europe of Fatherlands”.
For Germany, then, it seems that “To Open the Gate” is taking on a new meaning— letting the AfD in. As Anna-Lena Karl, an SPD councillor and interviewed by The Economist, puts it: letting the AfD have such an active role in city structures poses a “normalisation” effect. To answer Töns critique, to align with the AfD is to make a discourse of xenophobia normal.
