Germany’s Conservatives- Empowering the Far Right AfD?

The Local is report­ing that Ger­many’s far-right AfD (Alter­na­tive for Ger­many) par­ty has seen a notable increase in pop­u­lar­i­ty, lead­ing to con­cerns that the strate­gies employed by the rul­ing con­ser­v­a­tive par­ties may inad­ver­tent­ly be empow­er­ing rather than dimin­ish­ing its influ­ence. Despite attempts to crack down on immi­gra­tion and improve the econ­o­my, recent polls sug­gest the con­ser­v­a­tives are los­ing vot­er sup­port, while the AfD gains ground. The arti­cle begins:

Con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers at the helm of the Ger­man gov­ern­ment sug­gest they can cut down the far right’s influ­ence by crack­ing down on immi­gra­tion and improv­ing the econ­o­my. But polls show they are loos­ing vot­ers’ sup­port while the AfD gains. The slow but steady increase in pop­u­lar­i­ty of the far-right Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) par­ty has been a theme in Ger­man pol­i­tics this year. In a turn of events that many read­ers of The Local called “ter­ri­fy­ing” or “wor­ry­ing”, the anti-immi­gra­tion par­ty won its largest share of votes ever in the nation­al elec­tion in Feb­ru­ary, which was notably the biggest suc­cess by a far-right par­ty in a Ger­man fed­er­al elec­tion since the end of the Sec­ond World War. Since then, the AfD has seen its sup­port steadi­ly increase.

Read more: https://www.thelocal.de/20250723/how-germanys-leaders-are-empowering-the-far-right [Pay­wall]

Key Points

• The far-right AfD achieved its largest share of votes ever in the Feb­ru­ary nation­al elec­tion, mark­ing its most sig­nif­i­cant suc­cess since World War II.
• Recent polls indi­cate the AfD’s sup­port has climbed to approx­i­mate­ly 25 per­cent, now tying with or close­ly trail­ing the gov­ern­ing con­ser­v­a­tive Union par­ties (CDU/CSU).
• Chan­cel­lor Friedrich Merz and oth­er con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers have shift­ed fur­ther to the right, argu­ing for the demo­c­ra­t­ic defeat of the AfD rather than a ban, which crit­ics sug­gest nor­mal­izes the AfD’s platform.
• Exam­ples of con­ser­v­a­tives seem­ing­ly empow­er­ing the far-right include crit­i­ciz­ing protests against AfD leader Alice Wei­del and down­play­ing an intel­li­gence report con­firm­ing the AfD as “extrem­ist.”
• Ana­lysts like Johannes Hill­je and Ben­jamin Höhne express skep­ti­cism that cur­rent con­ser­v­a­tive strate­gies will be enough to under­mine the AfD, warn­ing that a shift might be “too lit­tle too late.”

German AfD Strengthens Global National Conservative Ties

The Ger­man Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (Alter­na­tive für Deutsch­land, AfD) has solid­i­fied its posi­tion with­in a bur­geon­ing Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance through strate­gic ide­o­log­i­cal align­ments and oper­a­tional col­lab­o­ra­tions with enti­ties like Hun­gary’s Fidesz and var­i­ous Euro­pean far-right groups, fos­ter­ing a net­work that chal­lenges EU inte­gra­tion and pro­motes anti-immi­gra­tion stances amid ris­ing calls for pro­hi­bi­tion. This con­nec­tiv­i­ty extends to shared plat­forms at inter­na­tion­al events, where AfD rep­re­sen­ta­tives engage with coun­ter­parts to ampli­fy nation­al­ist nar­ra­tives, as seen in their expand­ing influ­ence out­side tra­di­tion­al areas.

Mean­while, intel­li­gence assess­ments high­light the esca­la­tion of rad­i­cal ele­ments that deep­en ties to broad­er con­ser­v­a­tive move­ments. Fur­ther­more, the par­ty’s involve­ment in cross-bor­der alliances, such as those form­ing under Orbán’s lead­er­ship, under­scores oper­a­tional link­ages that include dis­in­for­ma­tion coor­di­na­tion and pol­i­cy con­ver­gence, evi­dent in sur­veil­lance warn­ings about rad­i­cal increas­es and diplo­mat­ic fric­tions over extrem­ism classifications.

Exter­nal References:

1. Alter­na­tive for Germany

2. Far-right AfD could join Patri­ots for Europe after Ger­man elections

3. New far-right group led by Ger­many’s AfD found­ed in Euro­pean Parliament

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.