Forward: ‘Devastating’—What Germany’s election results mean for Jews

The AfD’s rise isn’t just another ripple in Europe’s growing nationalist tide — it carries deeper echoes of Germany’s past. Some of the party’s leaders have ties to neo-Nazi rhetoric and have downplayed the Holocaust. Perhaps most alarming is the party’s growing support among younger voters, many of whom are increasingly disconnected from the country’s reckoning with its role in World War II.

And it isn’t only in Europe where AfD’s rise echoes, Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk have both expressed support for the party. …

Germany’s far-right surge is not happening in a vacuum; it’s part of a broader global trend. At a speech in Munich earlier this month, Vance criticized Germany’s mainstream parties for maintaining a “firewall” against the AfD. Musk made headlines by addressing an AfD rally via video, drawing criticism for lending it legitimacy.

forward.com
Benyamin Cohen

Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, reacts during an election night rally in Berlin.

Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, reacts during an election night rally in Berlin. Photo by Ralf Hirschberger/AFP via Getty Images

Germany’s election on Sunday sent a clear, unsettling message with record turnout and a clear anti-immigration pitch. While the center-right Christian Democrats secured victory, it was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that delivered the biggest shock, capturing around 20% of the vote — double its support from 2021, though not as high as some had feared.

“It could’ve been worse,” Meron Mendel, an Israeli-German historian and director of the Anne Frank Education Center in Frankfurt, said in an interview. “But it’s still devastating.”

The AfD’s rise isn’t just another ripple in Europe’s growing nationalist tide — it carries deeper echoes of Germany’s past. Some of the party’s leaders have ties to neo-Nazi rhetoric and have downplayed the Holocaust. Perhaps most alarming is the party’s growing support among younger voters, many of whom are increasingly disconnected from the country’s reckoning with its role in World War II.

And it isn’t only in Europe where AfD’s rise echoes, Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk have both expressed support for the party.

So, what’s behind the AfD’s recent surge? Why is this development particularly concerning for Jews? And how does it tie into broader global trends? Here’s what you need to know.

What is the AfD, and why is it controversial?

The AfD was founded in 2013 as a party initially focused on opposing Germany’s participation in the European Union and rejecting the euro currency. But the party quickly shifted toward nationalist, anti-immigration rhetoric — especially after 2015, when Germany welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly from Middle Eastern countries.

Over time, factions within the AfD have embraced far-right ideology more openly. According to Mendel, figures like Björn Höcke, a regional AfD leader, have promoted rhetoric that minimizes Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust and echoes nationalist themes reminiscent of Nazi-era ideology.

Why are Jews concerned?

For Jews in Germany, the AfD’s surge has painful historical resonance. While the party publicly denies antisemitism and even brands itself as pro-Israel, some of its leaders have undermined Holocaust remembrance efforts. Höcke, for example, referred to Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame,” sparking outrage.

But the concern extends beyond rhetoric. Mendel warned of the broader danger to democratic values. “In my view, it’s in the vested interest of any minority, and especially for Jews, to preserve the liberal order,” he said. “So if these values are eroded in the free world, it’s another warning signal for Jews around the world.”

While most German Jews oppose the AfD, a small minority has been drawn to its strong anti-Muslim stance — a sentiment that has intensified in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. “The AfD is trying to position themselves as the only one that protects Jews against Muslims,” Mendel said. “And they have radical ideas: for example, ‘remigration,’ which means to send migrants back to their homelands. And for some Jews, it seems like an attractive answer.”

How did the AfD become so popular?

Several factors contributed to the AfD’s growing support:

Economic anxiety: The German economy has been hit hard by the fallout from the war in Ukraine, particularly the loss of cheap Russian gas. Industries like German car manufacturing have struggled, feeding economic frustration and fueling support for the AfD’s populist messaging.

East-West divide: The AfD has found its strongest support in former East Germany, where feelings of marginalization and disillusionment remain more than 30 years after reunification.

Immigration fears: The party has capitalized on anxieties around immigration, especially among those who feel left behind by mainstream politics. The center-right Christian Democrat party — which won the most votes but must form a coalition government — also campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, an issue which drove many voters to the polls. After the election results were announced, President Donald Trump praised the win by the Christian Democratic party as “a great day for Germany,” and noted that voters were “tired” of a more open immigration stance.

Appeal to young voters: The AfD has gained traction with younger Germans, many of whom don’t have direct family connections to the Holocaust. The party’s social media campaigns have tapped into anti-establishment sentiment and a resurgent nationalism.

Is this part of a larger global trend?

Germany’s far-right surge is not happening in a vacuum; it’s part of a broader global trend. At a speech in Munich earlier this month, Vance criticized Germany’s mainstream parties for maintaining a “firewall” against the AfD. Musk made headlines by addressing an AfD rally via video, drawing criticism for lending it legitimacy.

This growing global network has helped normalize far-right rhetoric and expand the AfD’s platform. By aligning with international voices, the party has managed to soften its image for some voters — despite the continued presence of factions within the party that openly embrace neo-Nazi sympathies.

What’s at stake for Germany and its Jews?

While the AfD didn’t win the election, its rise has already shifted Germany’s political landscape. Mainstream conservatives have begun to show a new willingness to cooperate with the far right, breaking long-standing taboos around engaging with extremist parties.

For many Jews in Germany and around the world, the election results are a reminder that history’s darkest chapters can resurface in new forms. “The wish to get rid of the past was always part of the German discussion,” Mendel said. “But these voices are now coming from the second-largest party.”

 

13 replies
  1. Arnold Bannerman
    Arnold Bannerman says:

    On the worst possible account of The Holocaust, also involving non-German collaborators, bystanders, contributors, celebrators, minimisers, deflectors and deniers, Germans born after 1945 (i.e. 92%) cannot automatically inherit any guilt or shame, despite Exodus 34.7 and the view that “antisemitism” is nothing other than an hereditary psychosis endemic to all Gentiles.

  2. Harald
    Harald says:

    Forward scribbler Cohen does not consider the targeted mass murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians and their millionfold expulsion (according to the Jews’ wishes, preferably to Europe!) from their own territory to be “unsettling”, but the danger that the Holocaust narrative could collapse in order to be able to continue to justify their genocide. Is it any wonder that the whole world considers this “ethnic-religious minority” to be unscrupulous hypocrites?

  3. Gerbils
    Gerbils says:

    Wouldn’t it be nice to have a single political choice that didn’t serve jewish interests? Just one maybe?

  4. Freddy
    Freddy says:

    “Alpha Chad-King” https://archive.is/dxDNK and super-shill Moorbeanez is once again working off his hated nordicists, from whom he feels so violently rejected due to his mongreloid hybridity. Anyone looking for a good reason to be amused to death will, as always, find it with him and be handsomely rewarded. https://odysee.com/@martinezperspective:2/Hitler-Mussolini-South-Tyrol-Ruhr-Poles-RED:9

    Despite his immensely deep insight into historical contexts, which only his ingenious Canadian-Spanish-Czech brain knows how to interpret correctly, he continues to live as an uninvited invader of the Spanish welfare state. So far (for about 10 years now), he has only been able to exploit his almost limitless potential to a small degree to gather a willingly following (but above all paying!) fan base around him.

    • Freddy
      Freddy says:

      It also quickly becomes clear that Moorbeanez’s real motivation was the reference to the video of an anonymous alleged “historian” nicknamed “wildviper” and his channel “What Why How”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ucrF2PHBOc

      Whom in turn sees his main task as defaming the British Youtuber “Zoomer Historian” through dubious mainstream sources https://archive.ph/A5XCW (USHMM, Yad Vashem, SPLC, Alan Heath, “TIKhistory”, court historians of the system such as the extremely Germanophobic crypto-Jew Christopher Browning, etc.) with a video cowardly claiming “YouTube turned off the comments lol, wasn’t me.”

      In his Trump video, this cowardly, sneaky, unnamed alleged “historian with a master’s degree” indirectly claims to be an American citizen (“our country”), although he speaks with an audible accent, possibly Eastern European or even Israeli.

      His channel and his other links are about “alternative history”, and all that he unquestioningly takes from others in his video as “historical facts”, twisting truth and denigrating revisionist views as obsolete and non-valid, should ironically be labeled as such.

      It is obvious that, in contrast to “Zoomer”, his fabrication is massively hyped by Judentube (ober 400,000 views), because “alternative” interpretations of history have long ceased to exist there in the monotonous, thousandfold mash of unified narratives.

      Moorbeanez has for years at least pretended to know better than useful idiots and sycophants of the system such as “wildviper” or TIKhistory and has linked access to more competent sources under the “Six Million Myth” section of his website, including his own article on the subject.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20231012015852/https://martinezperspective.net/six-million-myth/

      After October 12, 2023, he secretly made the contents disappear in the night like a stealthy thief. This must have been around the time when he lost his job in Ceuta as a “language teacher” for African invaders “fleeing” to Great Britain by “slandering” him to his employer, as he reports in an older video.

      After that, he also stopped using his daily multiple Hitler salutes in front of the cam at Ome/Omegle for years. He would probably end up behind bars for all of this in his current “asylum” domicile Spain, but he may also have signed a “FED contract” (aka “Exit” for former neo-Nazis), as it is still unclear whose money he is living on.

      The matter of his blown job at the refugee language school and his simultaneous “Nazi activity at night” raises all kinds of questions about his character anyway, even if not for “Dr.” Greg Johnson, who has apparently taken a “liking” to his adept regardless.

      The heading “Six Million Myth”, behind which there was no content/article for a year, but only “Page not found”, only disappeared last November, a mere three months ago. He left this headline on his website as if for show, possibly so as not to scare away the last three of his once 30 or 50 fans.

      A few months ago, he also replaced the Nazi-like Fraktur font (he even tried to sold t-shirts of this kind), the German oak leaves, the Reich colors red-white-black, with a comic book font style for pre-pubescent visitors who are about the same age as the teens on Omegle whom he harassed for years.

    • Freddy
      Freddy says:

      The alleged Reddit “master’s degree historian” ends up emphasizing the intention behind his video: the ever-growing doubt about the Holocaust narrative (which many see not only as a largely invented myth to secure and justify the Zionist robber state of Israel, but also as a necrophiliac cult, a civil religion that seeks to replace Christianity).

      https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitWehraboosSay/comments/19a976s/im_debunking_zoomer_historian/

      His video is full of lies, half-truths and distortions. It begins with the well-known fake film from Auschwitz, where children are led by nurses through a passage bordered by barbed wire. This, according to a Jewish Auschwitz survivor on British breakfast tv, is a film made by Russian propaganda months after the “liberation” by the Russians.

      Of course, this infamous coward knows that “Zoomer Historian” is not allowed to dissent on the subject of the Holocaust without losing his Judentube channel or even facing criminal prosecution. Therefore, he can calmly throw the endless proverbial mud from the heads of mainstream historians at him without having to fear any resistance.

      He also wants to counter the fact that the white West is increasingly questioning the form of “democracy” that is destroying it from within with his video. He is not a critic, but a stabilizer of the current system, he is in its service, he represents it. Some call him a “useful idiot”, but he is probably also a beneficiary.

      But first he asks hypocritically: “Were Americas actions in any way comparable to Nazi Germany?” And immediately gives himself his own answer without any doubt: “No.” They were indeed incomparable, but quite different from what he is trying to sell/make us believe here!

      Indeed: They were much worse! Has Germany ever bombed America to the ground, invaded it, occupied it? Did Germany ever presume to subordinate American politics and the American system to its own ideas? Has Germany ever had an American war criminal (such as Kissinger or Bush) hanged?

      According to Brown University’s Cost of War Project, at least 4.5 million people have died as a result of the wars waged by the USA since 2001 alone. This figure includes both direct and indirect deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria and parts of Pakistan. Up to 5 million people died in the Korean War.

      Vietnam War: Estimates of 1.5 to 3.6 million Vietnamese casualties, both civilians and combatants. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused around 200,000 direct deaths. Minor conflicts and covert operations: Thousands of victims in countries such as Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Panama, Somalia and others.

      In WWII, including the Pacific theater, just under 300,000 Americans died. That is just half of the civilian casualties caused by the Allies’ air raids on Germany. British air raids on France claimed 70,000 deaths. The question of the Allies’ culpability for the hunger winters in Germany after the Second World War (estimates put the death toll at up to one million):

      The Allied policy of “deindustrialization” led to a drastic decline in fertilizer production, which exacerbated food shortages. Offers from Western European countries to supply food in exchange for German coal and machinery were rejected by the Allies. The Allies were initially unwilling to allow the Germans to trade, which made the supply situation even more difficult.

      “Viper” (better: asswiper) claims, Churchill’s financial backer/“Focus” war encourager Heny Strakosch “was no Jew”, though this can be found in evey Wiki. Their self-satisfied “national hero” is said to come off even worse than their oh-so-beloved US “bros” in a comparison of the world’s most devastating destroyers. Even Mao pales in comparison. https://archive.is/sl2Qs

      P.S. “The boys are back in town” https://archive.is/Bpizx

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79-QHeMlZm8

      From last november. Here they are, the melanin enhanced American anti-fascists (original English soundtrack available), accompanied by a compassionate (anti) “German” film crew: “Fear of Trump – anti-fascist gun clubs are arming themselves”. Description:

      “When Trump comes to power, Azad’s life changes: ‘That was the moment we all woke up’. Out of fear, he founded an anti-fascist gun club – in self-defense. In Texas, right-wing extremists are reportedly threatening events in the queer community more and more often, turning up with weapons.

      At the same time, racism and hostility towards those who think differently are on the rise, they tell us. That’s why more and more people from the left-wing scene are arming themselves. They want to be prepared and be able to defend themselves if fascists attack them or there is even a threat of civil war. We were able to attend one of their training sessions.”

      How many millions of them did Jew Mayorkas let in?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTmPE-qev3g

  5. Hello?
    Hello? says:

    My post is not appearing as “awaiting moderation.” Filter rejecting it. No bad language or links. Weird.

  6. M
    M says:

    I do not understand why Kevin McDonald allows the vipers who publish articles here as well as comment here, but he’s wrong to do so. I’ve long seen this elsewhere and anyone who doesn’t grasp that Mr Unz is as vile and hateful towards us as his vo-ethnics, is a fool. To those with a rabid anti-American bent, and marinating in rationales for the nazis who were every bit as twisted and a threat as zionists. They weren’t nationalists but sick f’s a coalition of the base of the Clinton’s Obama’s etc including Indians, Islamists and perverts. The majority of deaths in Europe were caused by the nazis they spread out and invaded every country they could terrorizing and slaughtering as they went killing tens of millions and that doesn’t include the death camps, inspired by the death camps of the communist bolshevik co-Marxists of the socialist nazis The Japanese had been killing millions of Chinese and other Asians starting in the late 1930s, they topped out at 30-50 million civilian deaths. Their untold thousands of death camps were absolutely on par with those of the nazis. Had something not been done to stop their deranged reign of terror, tens of millions maybe more would have died. Their deranged neurotic compulsion wouldn’t have stopped. As a result China fell to communism. If you want to talk Korea and Vietnam, blame Europeans, the old world outposts of empires. France’s Asian colonies Korea and Vietnam had been bled dry by socialist France and many there were willing to accept communism as a result. France and it’s other European cronies in NATO twisted the US’ arm, not once but twice and the neocons helped even though the old world’s continuing colonies weren’t covered under NATO. Yet Europeans went on to blame America for those wars, as they blamed America for the slave trade they colluded on, with the Sephardic traders and those bankers who scream ism if you identify them. Britain’s Queen Anne forced it’s legalization in the 13 colonies in 1705. I do not consider my ancestors European, but perhaps the last sane English people who left that country in the 1600s as it became clear the filth of Europe gained control of it and from then on brought even more of the scum who had been infesting it. I wish the US hadn’t entered WWII, I wish the US had had not allowed Trotskyites and later European leftists that were actually Leninists to enter. I wish we hadn’t trusted Trump as he has revealed himself to be a liar and a fraud, and as cozy with the Davis globalists as other Uniparty hacks. Musk, Thiel and his other South African donors are fascists, and those among you who are indifferent to what they are perpetrating with their flooding the US with India’s fecal matter are even bigger fools. You don’t seem like people who want to save the US, but those who enjoy roiling in the same sewer those you claim to oppose do. You all are as guilty of other emperors who wear no clothes.

    • Emma Smith
      Emma Smith says:

      It is important not to see political contests as football matches, cheering on one side only. We have a constant, justifiable interest to protect and preserve occidental civilization, and defend those who produced and must maintain it.
      Quibbling over events in WW2 is interesting and not unimportant, but marginal to the immediate and forthcoming necessities. So far as adverse Jewish and Zionist impacts are currently concerned, the more thorough and exact documentation the better, precisely because more convincing and change-effective. Mere expressions of hate, counsels of despair, grotesque fantasies, or personal insults, are not only useless, but a free gift to the Heidi Bierichs, Abe Foxmans and Larry Ellisons of this weary world.

    • Pierre de Craon
      Pierre de Craon says:

      I do not understand why Kevin McDonald allows the vipers who publish articles here as well as comment here …

      You’re mistaken about the articles and their writers, but you hit the nail on the head with respect to the commenters, especially those who have to use a database to keep an accurate count of their pseudonyms. Indeed, the man who used a woman’s name to respond to you is one of those I speak of.

  7. Titan Zeuss
    Titan Zeuss says:

    What the CDU/Gruenen and every EU Government are supporting right now. Its a Farce, its deceiving, it has NOTHING to do with Keeping Europe safe.
    From UNZ Review Today:
    But I cave to temptation as Volodymyr Zelensky, the puffed-up buffoon who has paraded flamboyantly across the world stage as a hero these past half-dozen years, is publicly cut to size as President Donald Trump gets on with the business of ending the proxy war Zelensky has cynically sold to the Western world’s lumpen liberals while presiding over the monstrously corrupt, Nazi-infested regime in Kiev.

    Let us sneer, let us snicker as the air hisses out of Zelensky’s balloon.

    This thieving som-a-gom bears front-line responsibility — along with his masters, of course — for the deaths of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers somewhere in six figures and the ruination of the country and the citizenry to which he purports to dedicate himself.

    Donald Trump’s démarche toward Russia and a determination to end the Ukraine war he shares with President Vladimir Putin, leave Zelensky marooned on an island made of out-of-date propaganda ops.

    And now we find Europe’s neoliberal elites, having war-mongered their way into the Ukraine morass because the Biden regime told them to do so, wandering on the beaches with him.

    As of Trump’s Feb. 12 telephone call with Putin and the Munich Security Conference, held in the Bavarian capital Feb. 14–16, the Continent’s leaders and their repellent mascot have been left holding a very big bag.

    Zelensky’s fall is significant but was a matter of time. Europanic, as I call it, is the big news of the week.

    This shapes up to be more fun than a rerun of an old Terry Southern movie, supercilious hypocrites with their pants down in every scene.

    Zelensky has been the papier mâché creation of others since he was plucked from a sit-com and re-costumed to succeed Petro Poroshenko, a chocolate magnate — Is there not a serious pol anywhere in Ukraine? — who moved into the presidential palace after the U.S.–cultivated coup 11 years ago this month.

    He, Zelensky, was financed by one of Ukraine’s countless megacrooks and coached by American image-crafters during the craven chicanery of his presidential campaign back in 2019.

    As readers may recall, the propaganda got so far out of hand after Russia began its military intervention three years ago that Biden regime ideologues, with corporate media dutifully parroting the trope, had the great broad masses believing Zelensky was “a 21st century Churchill.”

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