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      Bavarian Election Results Signal Trouble for Scholz’s Government

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      The election served as a midterm report card for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the grades were not good.German voters handed a victory on Sunday to mainstream conservatives in a state election in Bavaria — as well as in the smaller central state of Hesse — while punishing the three parties running the country.While all three of the governing parties lost votes, symbolically at least, the far-right Alternative for Germany and another populist party were the evening’s clear victors, notching record results in both states when compared with other western states.The results were considered an important midterm report card for the national coalition government of the Social Democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz, which received some tough grades. They were also seen as a bellwether of the larger political trends building in the country, not least the fracturing of the political landscape as populist and far-right parties make inroads.Here’s what happened and what it means.The mainstream is eroding.In Bavaria, the conservative Christian Social Union, which has governed the southern region for nearly seven decades, received its lowest level of support in more than a half-century, garnering less than 37 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results.That will allow the incumbent governor, Markus Söder, to serve another term, but only in coalition with the populist Free Voters, who came in at well over 15 percent of the vote, despite a last-minute antisemitism scandal involving the party’s firebrand leader, Hubert Aiwanger.In Hesse, which has fewer than half the voters of Bavaria, the incumbent governor for the conservative Christian Democratic Union, or C.D.U., won a decisive victory after an ineffective campaign by the federal interior minister, who ran for the Social Democrats and came in third, behind the far-right AfD.Bavaria’s governor, Markus Söder, left, and Hubert Aiwanger, the leader of the Bavarian Free Voters party, in 2018 after signing the coalition contract in Munich.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut it was the vote in Bavaria that was the most closely watched, and the outcome was taken as further evidence of the erosion of Germany’s traditional mainstream political parties, left and right. It is a phenomenon that has been witnessed across Europe — in Spain, Italy and France, as well as in Scandinavian countries.Less than a generation ago, the Christian Social Union could depend on the support of large masses of German voters, earning it the name Volkspartei, or people’s party.No more.“The crisis of the mainstream parties has also reached Bavaria and is hitting the CSU with increasing force,” said Thomas Schlemmer, a historian of Bavarian politics. “Today, you vote based on your individual lifestyle, not because of tradition.”Even before Sunday’s vote, Mr. Söder and his Christian Social Union were having to govern in coalition with the populist Free Voters. Now, they will be even more dependent on the Free Voters, underscoring the Christian Social Union’s increasing vulnerability.Much the same has happened nationally to its sister party, the much larger C.D.U., the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, as center-right support has been eaten into by populist and extremist parties, like AfD.Virtually the only reason the AfD, which came in second at just under 16 percent, did not do better in Bavaria was the presence of Free Voters, a homegrown Bavarian party with populist tendencies, which split the right-wing vote.Populists are rising.The Free Voters, a party that was founded by independent municipal and district politicians in 2009, is playing an ever-larger role in Bavarian state politics, where it is once again expected to be the junior partner in the state coalition.Its outsize role has underscored the rise of populist forces nationwide.Mr. Aiwanger, a fiery beer-tent speaker, has become the face of the party, bringing it further toward populism by criticizing immigration and environmental legislation.Mr. Aiwanger speaking at a campaign event on Thursday in Mainburg, Germany.Matthias Schrader/Associated PressAt an event this summer, Mr. Aiwanger called for the “silent majority” to “take back democracy” from the government in Berlin, in language that for many Germans evoked the country’s Nazi past. Although he was criticized by other politicians and the mainstream news media, the speech did nothing to quell his popularity among voters.“The success of the Free Voters is due to Hubert Aiwanger’s populist impulses and not to the constructive policies they have pursued in the municipalities for many decades,” said Roman Deininger, a reporter with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a daily newspaper based in Munich, who has followed Bavarian politics for decades.Mr. Aiwanger and his party managed to succeed despite a campaign marred by scandal in August, when Mr. Aiwanger was discovered to have had a homemade antisemitic handbill in his possession while he was in high school in the 1980s.Mr. Aiwanger quickly turned the scandal into an advantage, claiming that the newspaper that broke the story had waited until the heat of the campaign to discredit him. Voters apparently believed the narrative: Mr. Aiwanger and his party saw a bump in polling numbers.The Greens are despised.Throughout the campaign, conservative and populist parties made the left-leaning environmentalist Green party a stand-in for the governing coalition of Mr. Scholz.Though the Greens are just one of three parties in the coalition, along with the center-left Social Democrats and the pro-business Free Democrats, they were singled out for special antipathy.“The Greens are the new enemy,” said Andrea Römmele, a political analyst at the Hertie School, a university in Berlin. “It’s a framing that the Greens are somehow the party of bans and the opponent in a culture war.”Election posters in Unterempfenbach, Germany, near Mainburg.Matthias Schrader/Associated PressThe verbal attacks seemed to have had an effect. During one campaign appearance in Neu-Ulm, in the west of the state, Katharina Schulze and Ludwig Hartmann, the co-chairs of the Bavarian Greens, were onstage when a man in the crowd threw a stone at them.“That really was a shock,” Ms. Schulze, who campaigns with a police security detail, said in an interview.There were no confrontations during a majority of her campaign stops, she said, but added, “Of course our political competitors like to pour oil on the fire.”Despite that, the Greens in Bavaria came in at well over 14 percent.Mr. Söder, the governor, himself vowed he would not form a coalition with the Greens — even though Sunday’s election returns gave him the numbers to do so — and instead said he would continue in coalition with the populist Free Voters.“With their worldview, the Greens do not fit Bavaria, and that is why there will be no Greens in the Bavarian state government,” Mr. Söder said during a campaign stop in September. “No way!”Mr. Scholz’s coalition is in trouble.Although the results in Bavaria have no direct consequence on the government in Berlin, all three parties in the national coalition lost significant voter share in the election.The liberal Free Democratic Party, which occupies the important post of finance minister, is predicted to fail entry into the state house because of its bad showing.That portends badly for Mr. Scholz, who is about two years into a four-year term, especially because parties in Bavaria ran against his coalition in Berlin as much as against each other.In their stump speeches, both Mr. Söder and Mr. Aiwanger made dissatisfaction with the Berlin government their theme, railing against perceived dictums on gender-neutral speech, vegetarianism and rules for heating private homes — a Green party push that has engendered special animus.Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany last month in Berlin.Clemens Bilan/EPA, via ShutterstockThey also pushed back against the unpopular decision to close the three remaining nuclear power plants this past April.“The coalition is the worst government Germany has ever had,” Mr. Söder said during a speech last month.While such statements are typical of over-the-top campaigning, a recent opinion poll shows that 79 percent of Germans are unhappy with the coalition. Only 19 percent are satisfied with its work.Those are the government’s lowest approval ratings since it was formed in December 2021. More

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      AfD Candidate Loses Race for Mayor in Nordhausen, Germany

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      Voters on Sunday rejected the candidate for the hard-line Alternative for Germany Party, which is rattling German national politics, in the race for mayor in the city of Nordhausen.With a colorless and reputedly prickly small-city mayor being challenged by a far-right candidate known for his charisma and business success, many Germans feared that the hard-line Alternative for Germany party was about to win its first City Hall.But when the ballots were counted Sunday evening, voters in the city of Nordhausen had decisively returned their mayor to office, dealing a setback to a party that has drawn on nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment to secure a firm hold in German politics.“I thought it would be much, much closer,” said an early-round mayoral candidate, Andreas Trump, who ran for the conservative Christian Democrats and did not endorse a candidate for fear of driving voters into the arms of the rightists.The election came as Alternative for Germany, which has a nationalist, anti-migrant platform, is on the rise across the country. The party, known as the AfD, won only 10 percent of the votes in the 2021 general election, but since then, it has benefited from frustration with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party government, the rising cost of living, worries about the war in Ukraine and a surge in immigration.Now, the AfD is regularly above 20 percent in national opinion polls, well ahead of Mr. Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats. In the five states that were once part of East Germany, nearly a third of voters say they back it.A question-and-answer session for AfD supporters and residents in Gera, in eastern Thuringia, in June.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesBefore the vote in Nordhausen, in which the incumbent, Mayor Kai Buchmann, was challenged by the AfD candidate, Jörg Prophet, many thought the rightists might make a significant inroad into German governance.“Nordhausen is simply swept up in the blue wave,” Thomas Müller, a former local journalist, said, referring the party’s campaign color.Still, it was unclear if Nordhausen, despite its history as an East German municipality, would topple. A quaint city of 42,000 known for its schnapps distillery, it is an exemplar of Germany’s investment in its east, with modern trams and an impeccably maintained medieval quarter.“It’s not an especially right-leaning place,” Mr. Müller said.On Sunday, 55 percent voted for Mr. Buchmann, with 45 percent voting for Mr. Prophet.Benjamin Höhne, a political scientist who studies Alternative for Germany, said that winning the mayor’s office would have represented “another important step in the AfD’s normalization strategy.”“By showing they can take on communal executive responsibility, the hard-right-wing extremist core, which is increasingly crystallizing, appears to recede into the background,” he said,Nordhausen, a city with modern trams and a well-maintained medieval quarter, is home to about 42,000 people.Ronny Hartmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThis summer, AfD candidates won runoffs to lead a district in southern Thuringia and a small town in another eastern state, Saxony-Anhalt. The party has also gained ground at the state level. In Thuringia, Christian Democrats recently pushed through a property tax measure with AfD votes, three years after an outcry when mainstream parties allied with the far right to briefly oust the state’s leftist governor.None of this, however, means that the AfD is abandoning its extremes.That may have proved Mr. Prophet’s undoing.In the days after the first mayoral vote in Nordhausen, he turned away from city issues and solicited the help of two prominent AfD party figures who came to give speeches. He also refused to distance himself from Björn Höcke, the party’s most famous far-right extremist.“If he had really limited himself to just the municipal issues — there’s no telling how it would have turned out,” said Mr. Trump.The AfD leader Björn Höcke, speaking at a rally in Dresden in 2020, is viewed as one of the party’s most extreme figures.Gordon Welters for The New York Times More

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      Rise of Far Right Leaves Germany’s Conservatives at a Crossroads

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      The surge of the Alternative for Germany party has shaken the country’s political establishment. But for mainstream conservatives, it has also prompted an acute identity crisis.Mario Voigt, a leader of Germany’s mainstream conservative party, has watched with concern the slow but steady string of victories notched by the far-right Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD.In his home state of Thuringia, in eastern Germany, the AfD just last month won the district administrator’s seat, giving the far right bureaucratic authority over an area for the first time.Since the spring, the AfD has only gathered momentum. The party has gained at least four points in polls since May, rising to 20 percent support and overtaking the country’s governing center-left Social Democrats to become Germany’s second-strongest party. A more recent poll, released on Sunday, put the AfD at a record high of 22 percent support.The AfD is now nipping at the heels of Mr. Voight’s own Christian Democratic Union, or C.D.U., the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, which remains the country’s most popular but now sits in opposition.“Now is the critical juncture,” Mr. Voigt said in an interview. “We have to understand, if we are not showing or portraying ourselves as the real opposition in Germany, people will defect to the Alternative for Germany.”The ascent of the AfD, a party widely viewed as a threat to Germany’s democratic fabric, has posed a crisis for the country’s entire political establishment, but an especially acute one for the Christian Democrats, who are struggling openly with how to deal with the challenge.Should they pivot further right themselves and risk their centrist identity? Should they continue to try to isolate the AfD? Or, as that becomes increasingly difficult, should they break longstanding norms and work with the AfD instead?Those questions have bedeviled not only the Christian Democrats in Germany but also other mainstream conservative parties around Europe as nationalist and hard-right parties have made strides. Most recently, in Spain, the conservative Popular Party began partnering with the far-right Vox party at a local level. It even seemed prepared to do so nationally, until Spanish voters rebuked Vox in elections on Sunday.As state parliament elections approach in eastern Germany, including in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony, finding answers is urgent for the country’s Christian Democrats. Eyeing potential victories in the former East Germany, the AfD has vowed to foment a “political earthquake” in the months ahead.For now, the AfD has the political winds at its back. Germany’s support for Ukraine as it fends off Russia’s invasion — and the energy and refugee crises the war has provoked — has fueled German anxiety and, along with it, support for the AfD.As the current government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, tries to reorient Germany’s economic and security policies, critics say it has not made its case convincingly enough for many Germans.But neither, perhaps, has the C.D.U. in opposition.Chancellor Olaf Scholz, center, during a visit to a Siemens plant in Erlangen, Germany, this month.Pool photo by Ronald Wittek“The C.D.U., its more moderate worldview and its moderate position is not really equipped for the situation of this time, when we are having a war, when we have in the energy crisis, with high costs and now with a government which tries to ideologically influence people’s lives,” Mr. Voigt, the leader of the C.D.U. in Thuringia’s state parliament, said.“This together, in my opinion, forces the C.D.U. to answer the question: What is your DNA? What is your different perspective?”It is a remarkable round of public soul-searching from a party that as recently as 2021 had a lock on political power in Berlin for nearly two decades under Ms. Merkel. But now the party is engaged in a sometimes messy public debate over how to meet an angrier, more uncertain time.Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats, in a television interview on Sunday night appeared to open the door to working with the far-right AfD in local governments. The party had previously vowed never to cooperate at any level with the AfD, which Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified as a “suspected” extremist organization.“At the municipal level, party politics have advanced a bit too far anyway,” he said. “There has now been elected a district administrator in Thuringia. And, of course, this is a democratic election. In Saxony-Anhalt, in a small community, a mayor has been elected who belongs to the AfD. And, of course, this is a democratic election. We also have to accept that.”After members of his own party bristled at his comments, Mr. Merz walked them back. One of his deputies, Carsten Linneman, said that Mr. Merz was merely pointing out the policy’s “difficult implementation on the ground.”“If it’s about a new day care center in the local Parliament, for example, we can’t vote against it just because the #AfD is voting along,” Mr. Linneman said in a statement. “We do not make ourselves dependent on right-wing radicals.”The leader of the Christian Democratic Union in Thuringia’s state parliament, Mario Voigt, voting in Erfurt, Germany, in 2020.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockNorbert Röttgen, a C.D.U. lawmaker in Parliament, called recent polling showing the AfD’s ascent “a disaster” and “an alarm signal” for “all parties of the center.”His party, he said, needed to “ask itself self-critically why we are not benefiting in practice from such great dissatisfaction with the government.”Some political experts view the resurgence of the AfD as a rejection of Ms. Merkel’s policies — particularly her immigration and climate-friendly stances. That has created a particularly awkward situation for current members of the party.To win back voters, “it will be necessary to reject some of the policies of Merkel,” said Torsten Oppelland, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Jena in Thuringia. But, he added, doing so ran the risk of alienating others.The Christian Democrats, he said, “will go on being an important party. But for winning governing majorities, it’s a huge problem.”Many in the party have declared that they will never resort to pushing the kind of far-right, populist rhetoric that the AfD traffics in. Markus Söder, the head of the state in Bavaria, has warned that the party cannot campaign on a message of “anger and frustration.”“Repeating and chasing after populists does not bring any positive results; on the contrary, it strengthens the right-wing original and not the copy,” Mr. Söder told a local newspaper. “I will not risk Bavaria’s political decency for a fleeting percent of approval in the populist area.”Yet some in the party have begun tilting further right. Mr. Merz this month replaced a top party aide responsible for day-to-day political strategy with a more conservative member.Much of the party’s angst has been channeled into pummeling the climate-friendly Greens, a part of Chancellor Scholz’s governing coalition. Conservatives blame the Greens for stoking anti-Berlin sentiment in the more rural, economically depressed areas where the AfD enjoys strong support.And whereas Ms. Merkel famously declared “We can do it!” at the peak of Europe’s immigration crisis in 2015, Mr. Merz has adopted a more hawkish tone.An asylum seeker taking a selfie with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel after her visit to registration center in Berlin in 2015.Bernd Von Jutrczenka/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The refugee crisis is present again, combined with the uneasy feeling that there is always enough money for refugees, but less and less for kindergartens, schools and hospitals,” he wrote in a recent edition of his newsletter, explaining the rise of the AfD.Mr. Voight believes the Christian Democrats can still find electoral success with the party’s “pragmatism” and “moderate worldview.” But its message, he said, must be “understood at people’s tables.”“You have to tear down this wall in a way,” Mr. Voigt said, to bring AfD-friendly voters “over to the good side of politics, the democratic side. They have frustration, they have anger, you have to address it. And you have to talk to them in a language that they understand.”Jan Redmann, the party leader in Brandenburg, said in an interview that he believed that C.D.U. members had inadvertently allowed the AfD to define their positions on crucial issues like immigration, because they “tried not to be mixed up with” the far-right party.“People want a government that secures the borders — people are against illegal trafficking, against illegal migration,” Mr. Redmann said. “And if no party in the democratic field is giving them this position, it makes the AfD stronger.”An Alternative for Germany campaign poster in Saxony-Anhalt this month.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockEkaterina Bodyagina More

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      La extrema derecha vuelve a la carga en Alemania

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      Mientras los alemanes se enfrentan a una era de turbulencias políticas y económicas, el partido Alternativa para Alemania resurge. Los políticos tradicionales se esfuerzan por reaccionar.Las mesas estaban abarrotadas en el Waldhaus, un restaurante en las afueras boscosas de una ciudad del este de Alemania, mientras los habituales —trabajadores estrechando manos callosas, jubiladas agarrando carteras en su regazo— se acomodaban para una reunión de bar de la ultraderechista Alternativa para Alemania.Pero los incondicionales preocupan menos a los dirigentes políticos alemanes que personas como Ina Radzheit. Ella, agente de seguros con una blusa floreada, se coló entre bandejas de schnitzel y cervezas espumosas en su primera visita a la AfD, las iniciales alemanas con las que se conoce al partido.“¿Qué pasa?”, dijo. “¿Por dónde empiezo?”. Se siente insegura con el aumento de la inmigración. Le incomoda que Alemania suministre armas a Ucrania. Está exasperada por las disputas del gobierno sobre planes climáticos que teme que costarán a ciudadanos como ella su modesto pero cómodo modo de vida.“No puedo decir ahora si alguna vez votaré por la AfD”, dijo. “Pero estoy escuchando”.A medida que la preocupación por el futuro de Alemania crece, parece que también lo hace la AfD.La AfD ha alcanzado su punto más alto en las encuestas en los antiguos estados comunistas del este de Alemania, donde ahora es el partido líder, atrayendo a alrededor de un tercio de los votantes. En el oeste, más rico, está subiendo. A nivel nacional, está codo a codo con los socialdemócratas del canciller Olaf Scholz.Si la tendencia se mantiene, la AfD podría representar su amenaza más seria para la política alemana tradicional desde 2017, cuando se convirtió en el primer partido de extrema derecha en entrar en el Parlamento desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial.El giro es sorprendente para un partido cuyos obituarios políticos llenaban los medios alemanes hace un año, tras haberse hundido en las elecciones nacionales. Y refleja el malestar de un país en una encrucijada.Residentes locales llegan a una reunión de la AfD en el restaurante Waldhaus en Gera, Alemania.Lena Mucha para The New York TimesTras décadas de prosperidad de posguerra, Alemania lucha por transformar su modelo industrial exportador del siglo XX en una economía digitalizada capaz de resistir el cambio climático y la competencia de potencias como China.“Vivimos en un mundo de agitación global”, dijo Rene Springer, legislador nacional de AfD, en su intervención en el Waldhaus de Gera. “Nuestra responsabilidad para con nuestros hijos es dejarles algún día una situación mejor que la nuestra. Eso ya no es de esperar”.Cuando fue elegida en 2021, la coalición de tres partidos de Scholz prometió conducir a Alemania a través de una transformación dolorosa pero necesaria. En cambio, el país se sumió en una incertidumbre más profunda por la invasión rusa de Ucrania.Al principio, la coalición parecía vencer a los pronósticos: los aliados elogiaban su promesa de sustituir el pacifismo de posguerra por una revitalización militar. Encontró alternativas al gas ruso barato —casi el 50 por ciento de su suministro— con una rapidez inesperada.Pero entonces el país entró en recesión. Las cifras de migración alcanzaron máximos históricos, impulsadas sobre todo por los refugiados ucranianos. Y la coalición empezó a luchar entre sí sobre cómo retomar el rumbo marcado para Alemania antes de la guerra.La AfD, un partido que atrajo apoyos sobre todo al criticar la migración, encontró un nuevo atractivo como defensor de la clase económicamente precaria de Alemania.“Con la migración, la AfD ofreció una narrativa cultural y una identidad a quienes estaban ansiosos por su futuro”, dijo Johannes Hillje, un politólogo alemán que estudia la AfD. “Ahora, la amenaza cultural no viene solo de fuera, sino de dentro, es decir, de la política de transformación del gobierno”.Una manifestación de la AfD sobre seguridad energética e inflación, en las afueras del edificio del Reichstag en Berlín, en octubre.Christoph Soeder/DPA, vía Associated PressLa AfD ha resurgido a pesar de que los servicios de inteligencia nacionales la clasifican como organización “sospechosa” de extrema derecha, lo que permite ponerla bajo vigilancia. Su rama en Turingia, donde se celebró la reunión de Waldhaus, está clasificada como extremista “confirmada”.Un mes antes, su rama juvenil nacional también fue clasificada como extremista confirmada, aunque esa etiqueta fue retirada hace poco mientras se resuelve en la corte un caso sobre su estatus.En el informe anual de la agencia nacional de inteligencia en abril, el líder de la agencia, Thomas Haldenwang, indicó que se cree que de los 28.500 integrantes de la AfD, alrededor de 10.000 son extremistas.Sin embargo, un tercio de los alemanes la consideran un “partido democrático normal”, según Hillje. “La paradoja es que, al mismo tiempo, cada vez está más claro que se trata realmente de un partido radical, si no extremista”.En años anteriores, el partido parecía dispuesto a dejar de lado a las figuras extremas. Ahora ya no. Este mes de abril, la colíder Alice Wiedel habló junto a Björn Höcke, líder del partido en Turingia y uno de los políticos considerado entre los más radicales de la AfD.Höcke fue acusado recientemente por la fiscalía estatal por utilizar la frase “todo para Alemania” en un mitin, un eslogan de las tropas de asalto nazis.Nada de eso empañó el entusiasmo en el Waldhaus de Gera, una ciudad de unos 93.000 habitantes en el este de Turingia, donde la AfD es el partido más popular.Anke Wettengel, maestra de escuela, dijo que esas etiquetas equivalen a centrarse en los hinchas de un equipo de fútbol, y no reflejan a los seguidores normales, como ella.Tampoco veía ningún problema en lo dicho por Höcke.“Fue una frase muy normal”, dijo. “Hoy se nos debería permitir estar orgullosos de nuestro país sin ser acusados inmediatamente de extremistas”.Desde el escenario, Springer arremetió no solo contra las reformas laborales para los inmigrantes, calificándolas de “sistema traidor contra los ciudadanos nativos”, sino que también criticó las nuevas medidas climáticas.La audiencia golpeó sus mesas en señal de aprobación.Una sesión de preguntas y respuestas para simpatizantes de la AfD y residentes locales en el Waldhaus, en Gera. La ciudad ubicada en el este de Turingia es una de las muchas que están experimentando un incremento en el apoyo al partido en todo el país.Lena Mucha para The New York TimesStefan Brandner, representante de la AfD en Gera, compartió estadísticas que, según él, vinculaban de manera abrumadora a los extranjeros con asesinatos y entregas de alimentos, lo que provocó exclamaciones en la multitud.Muchos invitados afirmaron que son estos “hechos reales” los que los atrajeron a los eventos de la AfD. (El gobierno federal escribió en un documento que proporcionaba estadísticas a la AfD, que los datos no eran lo suficientemente sustanciales como para sacar tales conclusiones).Los analistas políticos afirman que los principales partidos de Alemania comparten la culpa por el ascenso de la AfD. La coalición de Scholz no logró comunicar de manera convincente sus planes de transformación y, en cambio, pareció enfrascarse en batallas internas sobre cómo llevarlos a cabo.Sus tradicionales opositores conservadores, entre ellos la Unión Demócrata Cristiana de la excanciller Angela Merkel, se están acercando a las posturas de la AfD con la esperanza de recuperar votantes.Están adoptando la estrategia de la AfD de antagonizar el lenguaje neutro de género, así como posturas más duras sobre la migración. Algunos líderes demócratas cristianos incluso están pidiendo eliminar los derechos de asilo de la constitución de Alemania.Los partidarios de la AfD han notado que sus puntos de vista se han ido normalizando incluso cuando los rivales han intentado marginar al partido, y eso hace que sea más difícil para los partidos tradicionales recuperar su confianza.“Se están radicalizando”, aseveró Julia Reuschenbach, politóloga de la Universidad Libre de Berlín. “Ningún grupo de votantes principales es tan inaccesible como los de la AfD”.Björn Höcke, uno de los líderes del partido en Turingia y considerado uno de los políticos más radicales de la AfD, marchando en un mitin en Turingia el mes pasado.Martin Schutt/Picture Alliance, vía Getty ImagesLa semana pasada, el Instituto Alemán por los Derechos Humanos, una organización financiada por el Estado, publicó un estudio que argumenta que el lenguaje y las tácticas utilizadas por la AfD “para lograr sus objetivos racistas y extremistas de derecha” podrían reunir las condiciones para inhabilitar el partido por ser un “peligro para el orden democrático libre”.Sin embargo, estas propuestas le generan otro dilema a la sociedad democrática: las herramientas que tiene Alemania para luchar contra el partido que ve como una amenaza son las mismas que refuerzan los sentimientos entre los partidarios de la AfD de que su país no es realmente democrático.“¿Cómo es posible que una organización financiada por el Estado se pronuncie e intente estigmatizar a una parte significativa de sus votantes?” preguntó Springer en una entrevista.Es una pregunta a la que aquellos en la multitud, como Wettengel, han encontrado respuestas inquietantes.“La política tradicional está en contra de la gente”, aseguró. “No a favor de la gente”.La verdadera prueba del apoyo a la AfD no llegará sino hasta el próximo año, cuando varios estados del este de Alemania celebren elecciones y tenga una posibilidad de llevarse la mayor parte de los votos.Mientras tanto, todas las semanas, los políticos de la AfD se despliegan por todo el país, organizan mesas de información, noches de encuentros en pub y conversaciones con ciudadanos, como si ya estuvieran en campaña electoral.Fuera de la estación de tren de Hennigsdorf, un suburbio de Berlín, el legislador estatal de la AfD, Andreas Galau, repartía folletos a los visitantes con una sonrisa inquebrantable. Algunos transeúntes le gritaban insultos. Otros tenían curiosidad.“Muchos vienen aquí solo para desahogar sus frustraciones”, dijo, con una sonrisa. “Vienen y nos dicen lo que sienten. Somos una especie de grupo de terapia”.Cada vez más personas, aseguró, ya no se avergüenzan de mostrar interés en la AfD. La sensación de que la política tradicional no está escuchando al ciudadano común es lo que podría estar ayudando a llenar las filas de la AfD.En Gera, el discurso que Springer pronunció frente a la multitud parecía un ejercicio de catarsis y validación.“Ellos creen que somos estúpidos”, dijo. “Se lo pensarán de nuevo cuando lleguen las próximas elecciones”. More

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      Germany’s Far Right AfD Party Stages a Comeback

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      With Germans facing an era of political and economic turbulence, the Alternative for Germany is resurgent. Mainstream politicians are struggling to respond.The tables were packed at the Waldhaus, a restaurant on the wooded outskirts of an east German town, as the regulars — workers shaking calloused hands, retirees clutching purses in their lap — settled in for a pub gathering of the far-right Alternative for Germany.But the die-hards worry Germany’s political leadership less than people like Ina Radzheit. An insurance agent in a flowered blouse, she squeezed in among platters of schnitzel and frothy beers for her first visit to the AfD, the German initials by which the party is known.“What’s wrong?” she said. “Where do I start?” She feels unsafe with migration rising. She is uncomfortable with Germany providing weapons to Ukraine. She is exasperated by government squabbling over climate plans she fears will cost citizens like her their modest but comfortable way of life.“I can’t say now if I would ever vote for the AfD,” she said. “But I am listening.”As anxieties over Germany’s future rise, so too, it seems, does the AfD.The AfD has reached a polling high in Germany’s formerly Communist eastern states, where it is now the leading party, drawing around a third of voters. It is edging up in the wealthier west. Nationally, it is polling neck and neck with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.If the trend lasts, the AfD could present its most serious threat to Germany’s political establishment since 2017, when it became the first far-right party to enter Parliament since World War II.The turnabout is surprising for a party whose political obituaries filled the German media a year ago, after it had sunk in national elections. And it reflects the unease of a country at a crossroads.Locals arriving for an AfD meeting at the Waldhaus restaurant in Gera, Germany.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesAfter decades of postwar prosperity, Germany is struggling to transform its 20th-century industrial exporting model into a digitized economy that can withstand climate change and competition from powers like China.“We are living in a world of global upheaval,” said Rene Springer, the national AfD lawmaker speaking at the Waldhaus in Gera. “Our responsibility to our children is to one day leave them better off than we are. That’s no longer to be expected.”When it was elected in 2021, Mr. Scholz’s three-party coalition vowed to lead Germany through a painful but necessary transformation. Instead, the country was plunged into deeper uncertainty by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.At first, the coalition seemed to beat the odds: Allies praised its pledge to overwrite postwar pacifism with military revitalization. It found alternatives to cheap Russian gas — nearly 50 percent of its supply — with unexpected speed.But then the country dipped into recession. Migration numbers reached all-time highs, mostly driven by Ukrainian refugees. And the coalition began fighting among itself over how to return to the course it set for Germany before the war.The AfD, a party that mostly drew support by criticizing migration, found new appeal as defender of Germany’s economically precarious class.“With migration, the AfD offered a cultural narrative and identity to those anxious about their future,” said Johannes Hillje, a German political scientist who studies the AfD. “Now, the cultural threat is coming not just from the outside, but within — that is, the transformation policy of the government.”An AfD demonstration on energy security and inflation, outside of the Reichstag in Berlin in October.Christoph Soeder/DPA, via Associated PressThe AfD has resurged despite domestic intelligence classifying it a “suspected” right-wing extremist organization, allowing it to be put under surveillance. Its branch in Thuringia, where the Waldhaus gathering was held, is classified as “confirmed” extremist.A month earlier, its national youth wing was also classified confirmed extremist, though that label was recently lifted as a case regarding its status is settled in the courts.In April, the domestic intelligence agency head, Thomas Haldenwang, said in the agency’s yearly report that of 28,500 AfD members, around 10,000 are believed to be extremists.Yet a full third of Germans now view it as a “normal democratic party,” Mr. Hillje said. “The paradox is that, at the same time, it has become more and more clear that this is really a radical party, if not an extremist party.”In previous years, the party seemed ready to sideline extreme figures. No longer. This April, co-leader Alice Weidel spoke alongside Björn Höcke, party leader in Thuringia and seen as one of the AfD’s most radical politicians.Mr. Höcke was recently charged by state prosecutors for using the phrase “everything for Germany” at a rally — a Nazi Storm Trooper slogan.None of that dampened the enthusiasm at the Waldhaus in Gera, a town of about 93,000 in eastern Thuringia, where the AfD is the most popular party.Anke Wettengel, a schoolteacher, called such labels the equivalent of focusing on hooligan fans of a soccer team — not a reflection of normal supporters, like her.Nor did she see a problem with Mr. Höcke’s language.“That was a very normal sentence,” she said. “We should be allowed to be proud of our country today without immediately being accused of being extremists.”From the stage, Mr. Springer railed against not only immigrant labor reforms, calling them a “traitorous system against native citizens,” but also criticized new climate measures.The audience thumped their tables in approval.A question-and-answer session for AfD supporters and locals at the Waldhaus in Gera. The town in eastern Thuringia is one of many seeing a rise in support of the party across the country.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesStefan Brandner, Gera’s AfD representative, shared statistics that he said overwhelmingly linked foreigners to murders and food handouts, eliciting gasps from the crowd.Many guests said it is such “real facts” that drew them to AfD events. (The federal government wrote in a document providing statistics to the AfD that the data was not substantial enough for such conclusions.)Political analysts say Germany’s main parties share the blame for the AfD’s rise. Mr. Scholz’s coalition failed to convincingly communicate its transformation plans — and instead appeared locked in internal battles over how to carry them out.Their mainstream conservative opponents, including the Christian Democrats of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, are edging closer to AfD positions, hoping to regain voters themselves.They are adopting the AfD’s antagonism to gender-neutral language, as well as tougher stances on migration. Some Christian Democratic leaders are even calling to remove asylum rights in Germany’s constitution.AfD supporters have noticed their views becoming normalized even as rivals try to marginalize the party — and that makes it more difficult for mainstream parties to regain their trust.“They are getting hardened,” said Julia Reuschenbach, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin. “No group of core voters is as unreachable as those of the AfD.”Björn Höcke, a party leader in Thuringia and one of the AfD’s most radical politicians, marching at a rally in Thuringia last month. Martin Schutt/Picture Alliance, via Getty ImagesLast week, the German Institute for Human Rights, a state-funded organization, released a study arguing that the language and tactics used by the AfD “to achieve its racist and right-wing extremist goals” could meet conditions for banning the party as a “danger to the free democratic order.”Yet such proposals create another dilemma for democratic society: The tools Germany has for fighting the party it sees as a threat are the same that reinforce sentiments among AfD supporters that their country is not actually democratic.“How can it be that an organization funded by the state can stand up and try to stigmatize a significant part of its voters?” Mr. Springer asked in an interview.It is a question to which those in the crowd, like Ms. Wettengel, have found unsettling answers.“Mainstream politics are against the people,” she said. “Not for the people.”The real test of AfD support won’t come until next year, when several east German states hold elections and it has a chance at taking the largest share of the vote.In the meantime, every week, AfD politicians fan out across the country, hosting information booths, pub nights and citizen dialogues, as if it already were campaign season.Outside the train station of Hennigsdorf, a Berlin suburb, the state AfD lawmaker Andreas Galau handed out pamphlets to visitors with an unwavering smile. Some passers-by shouted insults. Others were curious.“Many come here just to get their frustrations off their chest,” he said with a chuckle. “They come and tell us what is on their minds — we’re a bit of a therapy group.”More and more people, he said, no longer feel ashamed to show interest in the AfD. It is this sense that the political establishment is not listening to ordinary people that may be helping fill out the AfD’s ranks.In Gera, Mr. Springer’s address to the crowd seemed an exercise in catharsis and validation.“They think we are stupid,” he said. “They’ll think again when the next elections come.” More

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      German Conservatives Win State Election in Setback for Scholz

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      Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats scored record-low votes in the first major electoral test he has faced since taking office.BERLIN — Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, in a regional election overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, scored record-low vote percentages on Sunday as Germany’s most populous state went to the polls.The contest involved only legislative seats in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. But with the campaign’s start coinciding with the Russian invasion, the race was unusually dominated by national issues — in particular, the risks that the European land war might spread and the worry about energy supplies.Mr. Scholz has been increasingly criticized as dithering in his approach to supporting Ukraine in the war, which has become a popular cause in Germany across several parties, and his party appears to have paid a price in the first major electoral test it has faced since taking power less than six months ago.Projections showed the incumbent Christian Conservatives easing to a win and likely the governorship as the head of a coalition government. They were expected to take close to 36 percent of the vote versus less than 27 percent for the Social Democrats and 18 percent for the Greens.“It’s a huge disappointment for the S.P.D.,” said one political scientist, Uwe Jun of Trier University.“Given these results,” he said, “the S.P.D. must realize that it is obviously not perceived as the driving force of the federal government, but that it seems to be playing more of a supporting role in the coalition at the moment.”Just days after Russia invaded on Feb. 24, Mr. Scholz addressed the German federal Parliament and promised an epochal change, and signaled more spending on the Germany military. But since then the chancellor has struck many people as dragging his heels on policies that would actually help Ukraine.Supporters of the Christian Democrats after hearing the initial exit poll results on Sunday.Sascha Schuermann/Getty ImagesThere were weeks of debates on whether the German government would allow the export of heavy weapons before the Defense Ministry finally announced the shipment of dozens of armored air-defense systems.Germany was also seen as wavering on punishing Russia over the invasion. Fellow members of the European Union said Germany was trying to block decisions to boycott Russian energy imports, on which Germans are heavily dependent.Mr. Scholz was also criticized for sending his foreign minister on a state visit to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, instead of going himself.A recent poll found that nearly two-thirds of Germans do not consider Mr. Scholz a strong leader, and from respected broadsheets to Germany’s noisy tabloid Bild, commentators took the result of Sunday’s election as a damning verdict on Mr. Scholz’s first six months in office. A headline in the Süddeutsche Zeitung called the outcome “a vote of no confidence against the chancellor,” while Bild called it “a historic slap.”Voter unease seems not to have hurt one of Mr. Scholz’s coalition partners, the Greens. On Sunday, they were the big winners in terms of numbers gained over the last election, bettering their performance in 2017 by nearly 12 percentage points. Mr. Scholz’s two most popular ministers are Green party members who appear to be pushing for much of the popular Ukraine policy within the government coalition. One of them, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, traveled to Kyiv last week.The Free Democratic Party, the third coalition partner in the federal government, did not do well at the polls, claiming less than 6 percent of the state’s votes.At 56 percent, voter participation was unusually low for a state election in Germany.“It’s a test of people’s mood, which just shows what people think about the government’s work at the moment,” said Professor Jun.Voters handed the Christian Democratic Union, which lost the federal election after Chancellor Angela Merkel retired, an important win. It keeps conservatives in power in the industrial west, the former heartland of the Social Democrats, but it could signal a changing tide as voters go to polls in several other big state elections in the coming years.“The C.D.U. is back, our forward-looking course has been vindicated,” the party leader, Friedrich Merz, said on Twitter.The Social Democratic leader in North Rhine-Westphalia, Thomas Kutschaty, on Sunday.Ina Fassbender/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe election does not directly affect federal politics in Berlin, where Mr. Scholz has been running the three-party coalition since December. But the support for the conservative government in the big western state adds to Mr. Scholz’s woes trying to keep his government stable and the Social Democratic brand strong.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Inching closer to NATO. More

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      Germany’s ‘Invisible’ Chancellor Heads to Washington Amid Fierce Criticism

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      Olaf Scholz will try to repair Germany’s credibility in the Ukraine crisis when he meets President Biden on Monday. Next on his agenda: Kyiv and Moscow.BERLIN — One headline asked, “Where is Olaf Scholz?” A popular magazine mocked the German chancellor’s “art of disappearance.” And his ambassador in Washington wrote home that Germany was increasingly seen as an unreliable ally in a leaked memo that was all the buzz this past week and began with the words: “Berlin, we have a problem.”With the threat of war hanging over Europe and rising tensions in the standoff with Russia over Ukraine, Mr. Scholz is headed to Washington on Monday for his first meeting with President Biden since taking over as chancellor in December. Foremost on his agenda: Show the world that Berlin is committed to the Western alliance — and, well, show his face.Less than two months after taking over from Angela Merkel, his towering and long-serving predecessor, Mr. Scholz is drawing sharp criticism at home and abroad for his lack of leadership in one of the most serious security crises in Europe since the end of the Cold War.His Social Democrat-led government, an untested three-way coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats, has refused to send arms to Ukraine, most recently offering 5,000 helmets instead. And it has been cagey about the type of sanctions that could be imposed in the event of a Russian invasion.As for the chancellor, he has made himself conspicuously scarce in recent weeks — so scarce that the newsmagazine Der Spiegel described him as “nearly invisible, inaudible.”While President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy have been busy calling President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Scholz has so far neither picked up the phone to Moscow nor visited. He has not gone to Kyiv, Ukraine, yet, either, and his visit to Washington, some note, took almost two months to organize.Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday on the front line in eastern Ukraine. While the United States and other NATO countries rushed military aid to Ukraine, Germany offered 5,000 helmets.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesLast week, Emily Haber, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, sent a memo to Berlin, warning of “immense” damage to Germany’s reputation. It was not just the news media but many in the U.S. Congress who questioned Germany’s reliability, she reported. In the view of many Republicans, she wrote, Berlin is “in bed with Putin” in order to keep the gas flowing.It has not helped that since then, Gerhard Schröder, a former German chancellor from Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats, accused Ukraine of “saber rattling” and just on Friday announced that he would join the board of Gazprom, Russia’s most prominent energy company.“Scholz’s central mission for his Washington visit has to be restoring German credibility,” said Thorsten Benner, a founder and the director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.“It’s not how Mr. Scholz envisaged his first U.S. trip as chancellor,” Mr. Benner added. “But international security was never near the top of his agenda.”Mr. Scholz, 63, has been a familiar figure in German politics for more than two decades. He was general secretary of his party and mayor of the northern port city of Hamburg before serving in two governments led by Ms. Merkel’s conservatives, most recently as her finance minister.A labor lawyer and lifelong Social Democrat, Mr. Scholz narrowly won the election last fall on a platform promising workers “respect” and a higher minimum wage, while nudging Germany on a path to a carbon-neutral future.Foreign policy barely featured in his election campaign, but it has come to dominate the first weeks of the new administration. Rarely has a German leader come into office with so many burning crises. As soon as Mr. Scholz took over from Ms. Merkel in early December, he had to deal not just with a resurgent pandemic but with a Russian president mobilizing troops on Ukraine’s borders.Russian infantry vehicles during drills in January in the Rostov region of Russia. The standoff with Russia over Ukraine has proved particularly vexing for Mr. Scholz.Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters“It wasn’t the plan,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the vice president of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. “This is a government that has huddled around an ambitious plan of industrial transformation, but the reality of a crisis-ridden world has interfered with their plans.”Of all of the crises, the standoff with Russia has proved particularly uncomfortable for Mr. Scholz. His Social Democrats have traditionally favored a policy of working with Moscow. During the Cold War, Chancellor Willy Brandt engineered “Ostpolitik,” a policy of rapprochement with Russia.The last Social Democratic chancellor, Mr. Schröder, is not just a close friend of Mr. Putin’s, he has also been on the payroll of various Russian energy companies since 2005, notably Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the two gas pipelines connecting Russia directly with Germany under the Baltic Sea.It was not until last week, after Mr. Schröder’s comments about Ukraine, that Mr. Scholz felt compelled to publicly distance himself from the former chancellor.“There is only one chancellor, and that is me,” he told the public broadcaster ZDF.His party’s divisions over Russia are one way to explain why Mr. Scholz has shrunk away from taking a bolder lead in the standoff with Russia, prompting some to lament the loss of leadership of his conservative predecessor.Mr. Scholz won the election last year primarily by convincing voters that he would be very much like Ms. Merkel. Terse, well briefed and abstaining from any gesture of triumph, he not only learned to sound like the former chancellor, he even emulated her body language, holding his hands together in her signature diamond shape.But now that he is running the country, that is no longer enough. German voters are hungry for Mr. Scholz to reveal himself and increasingly impatient to learn who he is and what he actually stands for.The receiving station for the $10 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which connects Russia directly with Germany. If Russia invades Ukraine, Mr. Scholz will be under enormous pressure to close it down. Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesAs the current crisis unfolds, Mr. Scholz’s imitation of Ms. Merkel is also less and less convincing. She was understated and studious, and often kept her work behind the scenes, but she was not invisible.In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin invaded Crimea, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day. It was Berlin that united reluctant European neighbors behind costly sanctions and persuaded President Barack Obama, distracted by domestic affairs, to focus on a faraway conflict.At that point, of course, Ms. Merkel had already been chancellor for nine years and knew all of the protagonists well.“The crisis came very soon for Scholz,” said Christoph Heusgen, a veteran diplomat and Ms. Merkel’s foreign policy adviser during the last Ukraine crisis.Mr. Scholz’s advisers have been taken aback by the level of criticism, arguing that Mr. Scholz was merely doing what Ms. Merkel had so often done: Make yourself scarce and keep people guessing while engaging in quiet diplomacy until you have a result.When Mr. Scholz has spoken up on the current crisis — referring to the Russia-owned gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 as a “private-sector project” before pivoting to saying that “everything” was on the table — he has conspicuously recycled language that Ms. Merkel used before.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Deauville, France, in June 2014. In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin first invaded Ukraine, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day.Sasha Mordovets/Getty ImagesBut given the escalation in the current crisis, that language is long outdated, analysts say.“He’s overlearned the Merkel style,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Marshall Fund said. “He’s Merkel-plus, and that doesn’t work in a crisis.”After facing mounting criticism from Kyiv and other Eastern European capitals, Mr. Scholz’s leadership is increasingly being questioned at home, too.In a recent Infratest Dimap poll, Mr. Scholz’s personal approval rating plummeted by 17 percentage points, to 43 percent from 60 percent in early January, the sharpest decline for a chancellor in postwar history, the firm says. Support for his Social Democrats fell to 22 percent, lagging the conservatives for the first time since last year’s surprise election victory.Mr. Scholz’s team announced that after returning from Washington, the chancellor will pivot to a full schedule that he hopes will shift German diplomacy into high gear. Following his meeting with Mr. Biden, he will meet with Mr. Macron; the Polish prime minister, Andrzej Duda; and the three leaders of the Baltic States. The week after, he will travel to Kyiv and Moscow, in that order.Senior diplomats say it is high time for such a pivot, starting with Monday’s visit to the White House.Mr. Scholz has a seeming center-left ally in Mr. Biden, who has so far refrained from publicly criticizing Berlin. Not since President Bill Clinton’s second term have both the White House and the German chancellery been in the hands of center-left leaders, and for all of the wavering on the German side, the two administrations have been in close contact throughout.Mr Scholz, right, listening to President Biden, left, at the start of the virtual Summit for Democracy in December. Mr. Biden has so far held off on publicly criticizing Berlin.Michele TantussiBut patience is running thin, and Mr. Scholz will have to bring something to the table.“There has to be a visible sign of commitment to the alliance,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “That’s what other allies are doing: The Spanish, the Baltic countries, the Poles, the Brits — everyone has offered something to strengthen deterrence on the eastern flank.”German lawmakers have started preliminary conversations about beefing up their troop presence in Lithuania, officials say. Other options include more naval patrols in the Baltic Sea and more air patrols in Bulgaria and Romania.As important as any material commitment may be the words Mr. Scholz uses — or does not use — to publicly communicate that commitment.“Maybe for the first time he could mention Nord Stream 2 by name when talking about possible sanctions,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “He needs to make a clear statement that Germany gets the situation and will stand with its allies in a language that appeals to people in the U.S. and ideally not in his usual flat language,” he added. More

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      A Pillar of the European Order Has Collapsed

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      The drubbing inflicted on Germany’s Christian Democratic Union in the country’s recent elections is a sign that, alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 16-year stint in power, something larger is coming to an end.Aside from NATO, the Christian Democratic Union is the most venerable postwar political institution in continental Europe. It has led Germany, usually in coalition, for all but 20 years of the country’s post-Nazi political history. Focused on economic growth, Christian traditions, anti-Communism and maintenance of the Atlantic alliance, the party was a guarantee to Germany’s allies that Europe’s largest, richest country would be stable and dependable. With the measly 24 percent of the vote that Ms. Merkel’s successor, Armin Laschet, managed to win, the C.D.U. can no longer play that role. A pillar of the European order has collapsed.The C.D.U.’s decline has been underway since at least the turn of the century. While Ms. Merkel managed to disguise it, she showed little aptitude for reversing it. In the five elections since 2005, when she took power, her party’s vote share fell in all but one.Perhaps not every country needs a “people’s party” of the center-right. Big gainers in this election included Greens worried about climate change and Free Democrats worried about supply chains — two preoccupations that didn’t exist at the time of the C.D.U.’s founding. But there has always been more at stake for the party than an up-to-date servicing to voter preferences. In light of Germany’s Nazi past, it fell to the C.D.U. to play a moderating role — to speak to the patriotic longings of ordinary Germans in a way that would dissuade them from drifting to the political fringes.This role was almost constitutional. Half a century ago, Franz Josef Strauss, leader of the C.D.U.’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, justified his own rock-ribbed conservatism by saying it came with a guarantee that “no legitimate political party” could exist to his party’s right. Many felt they could trust Mr. Strauss to police the country’s rightmost ideological boundary.But in electoral politics, or game theory, or whatever you want to call it, there is a fallacy in such an arrangement. Ms. Merkel was not slow in discovering it: If there really were no legitimate viewpoints to the right of the C.D.U., then the party’s optimal strategy would be to move ever leftward, which it could do with no fear of an alternative right-wing party ever outflanking it.And this is what Ms. Merkel did, whether out of idealism or calculation. In the wake of the Fukushima meltdown of 2011, she announced an exit from nuclear power, long sought by the Greens. In 2015, she joined Social Democrats in passing a minimum wage. In 2017, she secured a vote legalizing gay marriage (without voting for it herself). Most crucially, in 2015, she announced that Germany would welcome hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing the war in Syria, creating a continentwide political crisis that, among other consequences, arguably drove Britain out of the European Union.The effect on German politics was unnerving. The Alternative for Germany party, up to that point a wonkish group obsessed with the European Union’s monetary policy, changed its focus to immigration in July 2015. The following March — eight months before Donald Trump’s election — the party harvested 13, 15 and 24 percent of the vote in state elections. In 2017, Alternative for Germany, now well-established on the C.D.U.’s right, not only sent nearly 100 members to the Bundestag, it also became the leading opposition party. It appeared that Ms. Merkel was heedlessly allowing votes to “drain” out of her own party into an American-style populism.Ms. Merkel, of course, is not the first conservative politician to poach voters from her progressive opponents. But certain problems come predictably with this strategy. The leader benefits more than the party’s rank and file, because the landscape of progressive issues is foreign territory to them. In last month’s rout, things that Christian Democrats might ordinarily have talked about and rallied kindred spirits around — Covid-19, migrants, the euro — were suddenly off limits. The rank and file fell silent. In last week’s rout, the C.D.U. lost half its voters from the previous election. Fewer than 3 percent defected to Alternative for Germany. The lion’s share went to the Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Greens.Now German politics has become less predictable. The Green delegation in the Bundestag has nearly doubled. Many of the newcomers are people who have never been in elected office before, giving them something in common with upstart European parties, like the Five Star Movement in Italy and LREM in France, and with Democrats in the United States on the arrival of their progressive wing after 2018. The Social Democrats are young, too. This year they took Ms. Merkel’s seat, which will go to Anna Kassautzki, a 27-year-old self-described feminist and environmentalist who wasn’t born when Ms. Merkel was first elected.Certainly some traditional German conservatives deplore Ms. Merkel’s legacy. But there was one sense in which she was mostly in continuity with her predecessors — her resistance to utopianism. Germany’s society, economy and (since Covid-19) health care system have lately performed more efficiently than those of its neighbors. The great achievement of Ms. Merkel was to understand that in the global economy, efficiency is often a synonym for vulnerability. Like a lot of its best machinery, Germany is both high-functioning and delicate.Many Germany watchers forget this. Ms. Merkel pushed her country’s relatively generous “social market economy” to do a lot more — to offer a reasonable minimum wage, to accept the burden of educating and assimilating millions of desperate immigrants from the Syrian war, and to do those things while promising to forgo the relatively cheap energy that nuclear power provides. She assented to the creation of European Union bonds — a perennial taboo in her party — to finance an emergency Covid-19 package.She was conservative mostly in what she did not do. She realized that Germany does not have the resources to do everything. It cannot underwrite the debts of other European countries, as many of Germany’s southern neighbors assume. It cannot dismantle its existing carbon-based energy system as quickly as Greens would wish — that would pose significant direct transitional costs and indirectly undermine the auto industry that is the linchpin of its manufacturing system. It cannot sever all contact with economies that American boycott enthusiasts deem boogeymen. It cannot say no to Nord Stream II (the pipeline that permits cheap energy from Russia) nor can it revisit its manufacturing arrangements with the “illiberal democracies” of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.Overindulging a country’s virtues can be as dangerous as overindulging its vices. More than her predecessors Ms. Merkel ran the risk of exposing Germany to instability — in her case, to an American-style class conflict between the beneficiaries and the outcasts of the global economy. She avoided the worst. But she had some close calls, and the shrinking of Germany’s great, stabilizing bourgeois party is bound to reduce her successors’ room for error.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More