Germany’s AfD: Controlled Opposition

by Tomislav Sunic

Tomislav Sunic explores the complex role of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and its potential status as controlled opposition within the nation’s political landscape.

Each time an aspiring nationalist party scores some parliamentary gains, let alone enters the corridors of power, its followers assume that the System faces imminent death, announcing the dawn of a shining nationalist future. Over the last seventy years, such a self-serving delusion has framed the mindset of countless White nationalist voters in the U.S. and Europe – leading, as a rule, to their constant disappointment. From Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France (Rassemblement National [RN]) to the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Flemish Vlaams Belang, followed by the recently installed post-pseudo fascist Italian government of Giorgia Meloni, or the would-be second term U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump, along with a few lurking Latin American Bolsonaros, such prominent nationalist voices sooner or later lapse into self-caricature. Even if they miraculously manage to scramble to the System’s gates of power, the next day they will piously start reciting Systemspeak homilies.

The reason for this turnaround is understandable. Parliamentary or presidential perks are powerful; the liberal glitz and glamor easily disarm even the most devout White nationalist. Furthermore, it must not be forgotten that since 1945 the System has invested tons of money into erecting firewalls and a multitude of cordons sanitaires in order to prevent an aspiring nationalist party from rocking the post-World War II Liberal Order.

A case in point is the nationalist-conservative party Alternative for Germany, the AfD, which over the last ten years and especially over the last few months has surged as a major contender for a power grab in several federal states. The ruling leftist “Ampel” i.e., “traffic lights coalition,” as well as all E.U. member states, no longer attempt to hide their fear of the AfD contagion spreading to their own front yard. Hence the reason that the System-friendly media outlets are resorting to demonization of the AfD by decorating it with epithets from their plentiful arsenal of fascist labels.

Germany is not just the financial locomotive of the E.U. and its economic powerhouse; it also serves as the main U.S. military and intelligence hub for the entire Eurasian heartland. The System and its proconsuls in Europe, including their sycophantic media outlets stretching from Washington to Berlin and all the way to Tel Aviv, are up in arms over the AfD’s suspected intention to pave a separate way for Germany.

On its domestic front, the AfD is critical of non-European migrants, and it aggressively lobbies for their repatriation to their countries of origin. In its foreign-policy stance, it has shown reluctance regarding Germany’s official sanctions of Russia, and it is also becoming an outspoken critic of Germany’s military assistance to Ukraine. Even prior to the conflict in Ukraine it had earned itself the media nickname of the “Kremlin party.” Given the catastrophic mutual bloodletting between Russians and Germans during the twentieth century, the “pro-Putin” conciliatory move on the part of the AfD hardly comes as a surprise.

The AfD’s success in the October 2023 elections in the federal state of Hesse and in the largest and the richest state of Bavaria is further proof of its growing popularity. Its electoral gains in the state of Hesse account for 18.4 percent of the total vote, while in Bavaria the AfD scored 14.6 percent, which translates into 28 and 32 seats respectively. The meteoric performance of the AfD comes as a shock to the ruling Ampel class, as well as Germany’s overseas supervisor in Washington.

There is little doubt that the issue of feral non-European migration is the prime cause for the spectacular rise of the AfD, although it cannot be assumed to be the only factor. Most of the AfD constituency are fed up with the technical incompetence of the ruling Ampel coalition which has failed to halt rising energy costs or the shrinking pension funds of its ageing population. This is the reason why everybody wants change. AfD’s recent electoral breakthrough in western German states only proves that its success is no longer limited to its traditional strongholds in the formerly Soviet-ruled Communist eastern Germany, such as the state of Thuringia. Short of getting banned or outlawed on the eve of the E.U. elections scheduled for next year — which cannot be ruled out — the AfD will likely double the 78 seats it now has in the Bundestag by 2024–25.

Upon closer look, AfD rank and file members do not look at all like the much-maligned radical right-wing specimens advocating revolution or threatening the German constitutional order, as is often suggested by the mainstream media. Its overall agenda is basically just an updated carbon copy of what the still strong German Christian Democrats (CSU, CDU) once stood for. And while the AfD is filling the void of the fossilized “conservative” CDU and CSU, the latter are becoming barely distinguishable from the ruling leftwing Ampel coalition. This is nothing new in the century-long charade known under the fancy name of “liberal parliamentary democracy.” One is reminded of the prominent antiliberal scholar Robert Michels and his classic depiction of the inherent corruption of the multiparty democratic parliamentary system.[1]

More to the point and less of a scholarly venue is the former bestseller by the late François-Bernard Huyghe, published three decades ago. In his semi-satirical work, he uncovers faked hostility between the parliamentary Left vs. Right. Accordingly, the Christian conservative declares: “Madame la Marquise I like your cute butt.” To that, the leftist Social Democrat responds with the same sentence, albeit by inverting its syntax: “Your cute butt I like Madame la Marquise.”[2] The more things change in the Liberal System the more they must stay the same — as witnessed in key swing states during the mysterious ballot counting after the November 2020 U.S. election.

Likewise, if it wants to survive in the high-tech surveillance state of Germany, the AfD must follow the System’s canons. In Germany’s political landscape, this means that it must strictly abide by the official self-censoring narrative and in addition perform ritual pilgrimages to Israel. An important figure in the AfD, the old timer and now AfD honorary chairman Alexander Gauland reiterated shortly after the Hamas attack on October 7, followed by the Israeli bombing of the Gaza strip: “When we stand with Israel, we also defend our way of life.”[3] His recent backpedaling into the Jewish orbit is hardly going to exonerate him in the eyes of the Jews in view of his earlier words regarding the National-Socialist past. Several years ago, he said that “the Nazis were just a minor chickenshit in the otherwise successful history of Germany.”[4]

The Empress’ New Clothes

What Medjugorje, Fatima or Lourdes means for the Catholic faithful, Yad Vashem operates now as an obligatory place of pilgrimage for the Western political class, and especially for German presidential hopefuls. No matter the size and number of German philo-Semitic genuflections, the Central Council of Jews in Germany remains reluctant to embrace AfD’s advances. In fact, following the Hamas October 7, 2023 raid on an Israeli kibbutz near the Gaza strip, the Israeli government and its mouthpiece in Germany declared the AfD, “a party that provides a political home to right-wing extremists and anti-Jewish sentiments and which has sought to trivialize Germany’s Nazi past and the Holocaust.”[5]

Consequently, in order to stay alive, the AfD needs to constantly provide evidence that it does follow the System’s rules. One of the most powerful figures in the AfD, chairwoman Alice Weidel, has learned this body-language mimicry well; she dresses up in the empress’s new clothes in an effort to deflect potential detractors. A tall, attractive, and soft-spoken woman of Nordic phenotype, Weidel is a picture-perfect modern conservative model, perfectly matching the image of a traditional Aryan female that can be spotted  in  Sepp Hilz paintings or Arno Breker sculptures. With her carefully administered mascara and her dark pastel attire she projects  herself as the role model for White urban middle-class German women. Her game change is aired not just on one conservative frequency but on all political wavelengths and for all lifestyles. As a self-declared lesbian living with a Sri Lankan actress, she has managed to triple-shield herself from potential threats from powerful German antifas, LGBTQ+ loud-mouths, and diverse multicultural-multicolored virtue signalers. With her measured telegenic diction, she never postures like some West Coast drag queen, nor does she ever pose like a seasoned Berlin dyke on a bike. Despite her unorthodox sexual lifestyle, she knows how to put up her conservative physiognomy up for sale, with her outward persona displaying signs of traditional Frömmigkeit, i.e., German motherly devoutness. How that squares up with her female constituency remains to be seen in the months to come.

Alice Weidel (Chairwoman, AfD)

The most interesting and intriguing figure in the AfD is  Björn Höcke and his faction the Fluegel, i.e., the Wing, enjoying  a great deal of popularity, particularly among educated hard-core German nationalists and especially among young supporters of the now terminated NPD. Needless to say, the German spy agencies, euphemistically called as “agencies for the protection of the constitution,” watch every move Höcke makes and every step he takes.

Björn Höcke (AfD, Der Flügel)

Understanding the AfD means first and foremost understanding high German culture and its intricate and tortuous history. Having lost twenty percent of its pre-World War II population (more than 10 million civilians and soldiers) by 1950 as a result of Western and Eastern Allied serial large-scale massacres, firebombing, expulsions and captivity, and having been subjected  over 75 years to incessant brainwashing by American, largely Jewish-born educators, one cannot expect miracles in the German political scene.[6] History, however, is always open and with serious new tremors happening now in Europe and the Middle East one might see some changes, not just in Germany but also in the entire West. Unless one accepts, but also believes in mysterious, multi-meaning, multi-god last words of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, “Only a God Can Save Us.”[7]

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Notes:

[1] Robert Michels, Political Parties; A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (1911 Kitchener; Batoche books, 2021), pp. 224-235.

[2] François-Bernard Huyghe, La Soft-Idéologie  (Paris: R. Laffont, 1987).

[3]   David Gebhard, “AfD streitet über Israel-Unterstützung”, ZDF-Heute (October, 15, 2023)

https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/ausland/afd-chrupalla-israel-hamas-100.html

[4]    “Gauland: Hitler nur ‘Vogelschiss’ in deutscher Geschichte” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 2, 2018.

[5] Dirk Kurbjuweit, “Germany Must Stand Unequivocally with Israel”, Der Spiegel, Oct. 13, 2023.

[6] T. Sunic, Homo Americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age (Ch. III, “Brainwashing the Germans”), (London: Arktos 2018), pp.74-86 and passim.

[7] Martin Heidegger in interview, “Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten,” Der Spiegel, May 31, 1976.

(The article was first published here.)