Scholz, Olaf (1958- )

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    Germany, a Loyal Israel Ally, Begins to Shift Tone as Gaza Toll Mounts

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    Supporting Israel is seen as a historic duty in Germany, but the worsening crisis has pushed German officials to ask whether that backing has gone too far.Days after Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was one of the first Western leaders to arrive in Tel Aviv. Standing beside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that Germany had “only one place — and it is alongside Israel.”That place now feels increasingly awkward for Germany, Israel’s second-largest arms supplier, and a nation whose leadership calls support for the country a “Staatsraison,” a national reason for existence, as a way of atoning for the Holocaust.Last week, with Israel’s deadly offensive continuing in Gaza, the chancellor again stood next to Mr. Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, and struck a different tone. “No matter how important the goal,” he asked, “can it justify such terribly high costs?”With international outrage growing over a death toll that Gazan health authorities say exceeds 32,000, and the looming prospect of famine in the enclave, German officials have begun to question whether their country’s support has gone too far.“What changed for Germany is that it’s untenable, this unconditional support for Israel,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. “In sticking to this notion of Staatsraison, they gave the false impression that Germany actually offered carte blanche to Netanyahu.”Standing beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu days after the Oct. 7. attacks, Mr. Scholz declared that Germany had “only one place — and it is alongside Israel.”Pool photo by Maya AlleruzzoWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Macron and Scholz Meet, Looking to Patch Up Differences on Ukraine

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      The leaders of France and Germany will try to heal an increasingly public rift over their approach to the war, and hold talks alongside Poland’s prime minister on support for Kyiv.Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Emmanuel Macron of France met in Berlin on Friday looking to smooth over their differences on how to support Ukraine in its war with Russia and allay concerns that the Franco-German “engine of Europe” is sputtering.Mr. Scholz hosted Mr. Macron alongside Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, as Europe struggles to maintain unity at a critical moment, with U.S. support for Kyiv in question and Russian forces having made gains on the battlefield.In recent weeks, the differences between the allies have become unusually public and bitter, even as all agree that support for Ukraine is crucial to preventing further Russian aggression in Europe.Mr. Macron, eager to stake out a tougher stance toward President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, chided allies not to be “cowards” after they strongly rebuffed his suggestion that NATO countries should not rule out putting troops in Ukraine. From being Europe’s dove on Russia, the French leader, feeling humiliated over his initial outreach to Mr. Putin, has been transformed over the past two years into its hawk.The way he has made the switch has rankled some allies. Mr. Macron’s remark was interpreted as a jab at Mr. Scholz’s government, which in turn retorted that Mr. Macron ought to put up more money or weapons to back his words.Mr. Scholz, who has made Germany the largest military supporter of Ukraine after Washington, feels he has offered the material backing necessary and is resistant to doing more. But to the chagrin of even his own coalition partners, he has drawn a line against sending long-range Taurus missiles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden and Germany’s Scholz Meet at White House and Push for Ukraine Aid

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      The message came as congressional lawmakers were working on a package with billions in assistance but an uncertain fate.President Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany used a meeting at the Oval Office on Friday to pressure Congress to pass billions more in aid for Ukraine, as legislative dysfunction and opposition among some Republicans have left the critical package in limbo.“Hopefully Congress, the House, will follow you and make a decision on giving the necessary support because without the support of the United States and without the support of European states, Ukraine will not have a chance to defend its own country,” Mr. Scholz said in opening remarks before their meeting.Mr. Biden had a more blunt assessment of the congressional gridlock.“The failure of the United States Congress, if it occurs, not to support Ukraine is close to criminal neglect,” Mr. Biden said. “It is outrageous.”The joint pressure amounted to another maneuver in the high-stakes battle over funding for Ukraine as it tries to fight off Russia’s invasion, a debate that could ultimately help determine the course of the war and, much of Europe worries, security across the continent.The message comes after Senate Republicans blocked a broad bipartisan deal this week that would have provided billions in funding for Ukraine and Israel, as well as stringent restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border. Senators are now inching ahead with legislation would provide $60.1 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion for Israel and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for civilians in global conflicts.Senators were planning to work into the weekend on the bill, and it appeared to be on track for passage in the Senate within days. But it faces stiff opposition from many Republicans in the G.O.P.-led House.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Germany Braces for Decades of Confrontation With Russia

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      Leaders are sounding alarms about growing threats, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz is wary of pushing the Kremlin, and his own ambivalent public, too far.Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has begun warning Germans that they should prepare for decades of confrontation with Russia — and that they must speedily rebuild the country’s military in case Vladimir V. Putin does not plan to stop at the border with Ukraine.Russia’s military, he has said in a series of recent interviews with German news media, is fully occupied with Ukraine. But if there is a truce, and Mr. Putin, Russia’s president, has a few years to reset, he thinks the Russian leader will consider testing NATO’s unity.“Nobody knows how or whether this will last,” Mr. Pistorius said of the current war, arguing for a rapid buildup in the size of the German military and a restocking of its arsenal.Mr. Pistorius’s public warnings reflect a significant shift at the top levels of leadership in a country that has shunned a strong military since the end of the Cold War. The alarm is growing louder, but the German public remains unconvinced that the security of Germany and Europe has been fundamentally threatened by a newly aggressive Russia.The defense minister’s post in Germany is often a political dead end. But Mr. Pistorius’s status as one of the country’s most popular politicians has given him a freedom to speak that others — including his boss, Chancellor Olaf Scholz — do not enjoy.As Mr. Scholz prepares to meet President Biden at the White House on Friday, many in the German government say that there is no going back to business as usual with Mr. Putin’s Russia, that they anticipate little progress this year in Ukraine and that they fear the consequences should Mr. Putin prevail there.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Germany’s Green Party Lost Its Luster

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      The party was riding high when it entered the government two years ago. Now it is stumbling, blamed for driving voters to the far right.Germany’s Green Party entered the government in 2021 with the best election showing of its history, establishing itself for the first time as a true mainstream party with the potential of one day even yielding a chancellor.It won five cabinet positions in the three-party coalition, including the powerful economy and foreign ministries. It seemed to have a strong mandate to advance the country’s economic transition toward a greener future.What a difference two years make. And a Russian invasion of Ukraine. And rising energy costs. And a host of missteps that some even within the party concede has stalled the Greens’ momentum.Today the Greens are widely viewed as a drag on the government of the Social Democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz, which one poll gave a mere 19 percent approval rating. The Greens have drawn withering attacks from even their own coalition partners. To their opponents, the Greens have overreached on their agenda and become the face of an out-of-touch environmental elitism that has alienated many voters, sending droves to the far right.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Germany’s Far-Left Wagenknecht Forms New Populist Party

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      Sahra Wagenknecht has announced a new party, which could become another populist force scrambling German politics.Germany’s political landscape has been fracturing for a decade or more as traditional parties lose ground to populist elements, forcing the establishment of a three-way coalition government for the first time in the country’s modern history.A significant new fissure opened on Monday, when one of the country’s most prominent leftist politicians, Sahra Wagenknecht, announced that she would form her own party, throwing up yet another wild card and challenging the political mainstream.Few Germans do not know Ms. Wagenknecht. A gifted orator, she has made something of a brand for herself with her biting criticism of the government and over-the-top political rhetoric. She is a frequent presence on television debate shows and at signings for her new best-selling book; on weekly YouTube clips, which are watched hundreds of thousands of times; and on the floor of the parliament, where she is a member of the Left party, or Die Linke.True to form, the association she founded with four others to build the party is named after herself: the Sahra Wagenknecht Coalition, or BSW in the German acronym, making it the first party in postwar Germany built entirely around one figurehead. Ms. Wagenknecht said the party would be a home for those who feel abandoned by mainstream politics, and stand for “reason and fairness.”“We decided to establish a new party because we are convinced that things cannot go on as they are at present,” Ms. Wagenknecht told Berlin’s press corps on Monday, adding: “Otherwise, in ten years’ time, our country will be unrecognizable.”For decades after World War II, Germany was governed by just two major parties — the conservative Christian Democrats and the progressive Social Democrats. As that consensus breaks down, Ms. Wagenknecht’s new populist party may present another hurdle to finding parliamentary consensus in what has long been a consensus-minded country.The new party threatens not only to break up the far left, who are the political heirs to Communist East Germany, but to further erode the political mainstream. It may also compete for the disaffected voters who have flocked to the country’s leading populist party on the far right, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which is now polling at 22 percent support.Ms. Wagenknecht argues that progressives are too focused on diet, personal pronouns and the perception of racism, and are not worried enough about poverty.Steffi Loos/Getty ImagesA poll taken over the weekend by Bild found that 27 percent of voters would consider voting for Ms. Wagenknecht’s party, even if little concrete information about her actual platform is available. In a country where more than one in five say they would vote for the far-right AfD, Ms. Wagenknecht’s new party has the potential to act as a spoiler, effectively loosening the AfD’s grip on protest voters.Marcel Lewandowsky, a political scientist who studies populism at the Federal Armed Forces university in Hamburg, says the new party could attract voters who are on the political right when it comes to migration, but believe in the importance of the welfare state.“The thinking is that there are AfD voters who on things like migration are very far to the right of the spectrum, but at the same time maybe fear for their own social status, and also have economic fears,” he said. “There’s no guarantee, but there is potential that it could work.”As long as Ms. Wagenknecht sticks to her vow not to collaborate with the far-right AfD, her party could help buffer a takeover from the right, especially in the East, where Ms. Wagenknecht has her roots and is especially popular.Ms. Wagenknecht is one of the very few federal politicians still active who started their political career in the former East Germany. Months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, she joined the Communist Party.She made her name after reunification in the party’s successor, which is now called the Left, and was voted into the European Parliament in 2004 and Germany’s national parliament in 2009. Since then she has held almost every post in the Left party, including acting as head of its parliamentary group.Ms. Wagenknecht loves to attack what she calls the “lifestyle left.” She argues that progressives are too focused on diet, pronouns, and the perception of racism, and are not worried enough about poverty and an ever-growing gap between rich and poor.She says immigration by people who do not have a chance for asylum has gotten out of control. “It definitely has to be stopped because it is completely overwhelming our country,” she said on Monday.Though details are still scant, Ms. Wagenknecht and her allies have outlined four major planks for the party platform. Perhaps surprisingly for a left-wing politician, the economy is the first and most important.Ms. Wagenknecht announcing the formation of the new party on Monday.John MacDougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“If the economy goes under, you don’t even have to worry about pensions and wages and social benefits,” Ms. Wagenknecht said during an interview in her office last month. “All those things will go under too.”During the interview, Ms. Wagenknecht was especially critical of the environmentalist Green party, part of the governing coalition, for focusing on things like rules governing the heating of public buildings.“People think this government is haphazard, shortsighted, plain, incompetent and ideologically driven,” she said, adding, “And that — in fact — is the case.”She has long criticized Germany’s support for Ukraine, especially the 7.4 billion euros worth of weaponry Germany has sent to help in its defense. On Monday, she proposed buying Russian energy directly from Russia again, and decried the billions spent trying to replace Russian gas.It’s a message that could play well among voters for the AfD, who tend to be less supportive of Ukraine than others.Manfred Güllner, whose polling firm, the Forsa Institute, conducted a poll gauging Ms. Wagenknecht’s viability as a political brand, says the new party has as much a chance of attracting voters from traditional parties as it does of attracting those who vote on the right.Noting that the far right was at a high point after successes in state elections in Bavaria and Hesse earlier this month, he said: “All those who have migrated to the AfD, they see now that the AfD is successful — why should they suddenly vote for the Wagenknecht party?”After hinting at the move for months, Ms. Wagenknecht said on Monday that she would form the party. Nine other parliamentarians joined her in leaving the Left. It could represent a death blow to her old party, which will lose not only its most recognizable member, but also its status as a parliamentary group, which is linked to funding and provides hundreds of jobs.The timing of Ms. Wagenknecht’s announcement will allow her and her team to field candidates for the European Parliament’s election in June, where no minimum hurdle is required to win seats. And if that goes well, they could then field candidates for state elections taking place in three eastern Germany states in the second half of 2024.“Now she will actually have to give concrete answers instead of just criticizing the woke left-wing lifestyle,” said Frank Decker, a political scientist at the University of Bonn, who has studied the AfD.At a recent book signing in her native city of Jena, in the eastern state of Thuringia, Ms. Wagenknecht was treated like a celebrity by the roughly 1,000 people who gathered to watch her read from her best-selling book, “Die Selbstgerechten” or “The Self-Righteous.”Many in the audience were disappointed in mainstream politics, they said afterward. Thomas Hultsch, 52, had brought his two daughters to the reading. Mr. Hultsch said that while he would never vote for the AfD, he does not like the traditional parties either.“I would give her a chance,” he said. More

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      Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So.

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      The war in the Middle East, anxiety about the commitment of the U.S., and divisions in Europe are worrying Kyiv that aid from the West may wane.Clearly anxious, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine went in person this week to see NATO defense ministers in Brussels, worried that the war between Israel and Hamas will divert attention — and needed weapons — from Ukraine’s long and bloody struggle against the Russian invasion.American and NATO officials moved to reassure Mr. Zelensky, pledging another $2 billion in immediate military aid. But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached “peak Ukraine” — that support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.The new run for the White House by former President Donald J. Trump is shaking confidence that Washington will continue large-scale support for Ukraine. But the concern, Europeans say, is larger than Mr. Trump and extends to much of his Republican Party, which has made cutting support for Ukraine a litmus test of conservative credibility.Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue. Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv. A far right opposed to aiding Ukraine’s war effort has surged in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to win voters over to his call for a stronger military.“I’m pessimistic,” said Yelyzaveta Yasko, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who is on the foreign affairs committee. “There are many questions now — weapons production, security infrastructure, economic aid, the future of NATO,” she said, but noted that answers to those questions had a timeline of at least five years.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, right, talking with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.Olivier Matthys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have been fighting for 600 days,” she added, “and I don’t see the leadership and planning that is required to take real action — not just statements — in support of Ukraine.”Even more depressing, Ms. Yasko said at a recent security forum in Warsaw, is the way domestic politics are “instrumentalizing Ukraine.”“Opinion polls show the people still support Ukraine,” she said, “but politicians start to use Ukraine as a topic to fight each other, and Ukraine becomes a victim.”“I’m worried,” she continued. “I don’t like the way my country is used as a tool.”The previous bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States no longer seems to hold. “There’s less pushback against the anti-Ukrainian stuff already out there,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, mentioning the Republican right wing and influential voices like Elon Musk. “It’s dangerous.”Should Washington cut its aid to Ukraine, deciding that it is not worth the cost, top European officials, including the European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, openly acknowledge that Europe cannot fill the gap.He was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, when Congress excluded support from Ukraine in its temporary budget deal. “That was certainly not expected, and certainly not good news,” Mr. Borrell told a summit meeting of E.U. leaders this month in Spain.European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, right, with Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via EPA, via Shutterstock“Europe cannot replace the United States,” he said, even as it proposes more aid. “Certainly, we can do more, but the United States is something indispensable for the support to Ukraine.” That same day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that without Western aid, Ukraine could not survive more than a week.European leaders have pledged to send more air-defense systems to Ukraine to help fend off a possible new Russian air campaign targeting energy infrastructure as winter looms. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Friday that his country would send additional Patriot missiles, which have proved effective in defending the skies over Kyiv, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office.At the same time, European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production.Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” to aid Ukraine, he said, “and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible.”Even before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, a senior NATO official said that the mood about Ukraine was gloomy. Still, the official said that the Europeans were spending more on the military and that he expected Congress to continue aid to Ukraine, even if not the $43 billion authorized previously.Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense research institution, said a key issue now is Ukrainian will and resources in what has become a war of attrition. “It’s not really about us anymore, it’s about them,” he said. “The issue is Ukrainian resilience.”Ukrainians will quietly admit to difficulties with morale as the war grinds on, but they see no option other than to continue the fight, whatever happens in the West.Soldiers with the 128th Brigade repairing a broken down Carnation, a self-propelled artillery piece, before taking it back to the front line in September in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBut some say that they are fearful that President Biden, facing what could be a difficult re-election campaign against Mr. Trump, will try to push Kyiv to get into negotiations for a cease-fire with Russia by next summer, to show that he is committed to peace.That worry is likely to be exaggerated, American officials suggest, given Mr. Biden’s continuing strong support for Ukraine, which is echoed in American opinion polls. But there remains confusion about any end goal that does not foresee Ukraine pushing all Russian troops out of sovereign Ukraine, or any clear path to negotiations with a Russia that shows no interest in talking.As Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said at the Warsaw security forum, the mantra “as long as it takes” fails to define “it,” let alone “long.” For him, “it” should mean driving the invading Russians out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.In private, at least, other European officials consider that highly unlikely.Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, suggested that NATO’s 75th anniversary summit meeting next summer in Washington will be tense because of Ukraine, as it will come at the height of the American presidential campaign. Any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is likely to help Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, Mr. Bildt said.But while many worry about the possibility of declining American support for Ukraine, the potential for backsliding is not limited to the United States, as the costs of the war are more deeply felt in Europe.In its campaign in Poland, for elections this weekend, the governing Law and Justice Party has complained angrily that Ukrainian grain exports are flooding the Polish market, damaging the farmers who are a key element of the party’s support and underlining the implications for Polish agriculture should Ukraine join the European Union.Mr. Zelensky responded that “it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain.”Grain stored in Leszczany, Poland, in April.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe Polish government, fighting for votes with parties farther to the right, then said it would cease military aid to Ukraine, even though it has already provided an enormous amount early in the war.Anti-Russian sentiment is a given in Poland, but the animosity toward Germany, an E.U. and NATO ally, was striking, too, said Slawomir Debski, the director the of Polish Institute of International Affairs.He described the campaign as “very dirty,” with wild accusations playing on strong anti-German, anti-Russian, anti-European Union sentiments, combined with growing tensions with Ukraine.It was all a sharp contrast to Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees and important early provision of tanks, fighter jets and ammunition just last year.“I warned many people, including the Americans, that this government is being accused of doing too much for Ukraine, so be careful,” Mr. Debski said.Michal Baranowski, a Pole who is the managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, said he was “disheartened because Polish political leaders know we need to stay the course in Ukraine, but they are letting emotions and politics get the better of them.”Polish division, however political, does not stay in Poland, Mr. Baranowski warned. “The effect of this on the United States and the Republican Party is terrible,” he said.Constant Méheut More

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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