political unfoldings in germany
The German federal election is this Sunday, February 23 β two days from now. I've been writing a considerable amount about politics both in the USA and Europe, but those writings have mostly stayed in my personal notebooks and folders. I want to hold my political writings to a higher standard of getting it right, and that has led to me hold my writings back until the world changes so much they have become dated relics of an earlier time. But this post, at least, is being published.
In the tail end of 2024, the governing coalition of Germany fell apart, causing a need for snap elections to be held this February. This election is meaningful because Friedrich Merz, chair of the CDU (center-right), is favored to become the next chancellor, with his party winning the election. Merz has given many indications in the past month that he will turn around and form a governing coalition with the AfD (the far-right party in Germany, which is polling in second place.) This is a massive deal because of Germany's firewall against the far-right, which is the single thing that has protected Germany so well against resurgences of Nazism since World War II. Breaking that firewall, as Merz has done, completely opens the door to a shitstorm.
Let me explain the context of the situation.
This graph shows a combination of every opinion poll for the 2025 German election. Black is the CDU, called "Union" here, blue is the AfD, and red is the SPD β the center-left party of Olaf Scholz, the current chancellor. Green is the Greens (the environmental party), and the others are not really significant.
CDU / CSU
Center-right*
*(as of 2025 they seem to be shifting further rightwards, and have a worrisome connection to the AfD)
The Christliche Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union) typically gets the most votes. This party is basically the center-right party. It has a sister party, known as the Christliche Soziale Union (CSU), which only operates in Bavaria. But the CDU and CSU are pretty much interchangeable.
The CDU was Angela Merkel's party. Around 2015, Merkel embraced a pro-immigration policy of Willkommenspolitik, which ushered in vast numbers of refugees and asylum seekers, especially from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. In 2016, immigrants made up 12% of the German population. However, this massive influx caused a stir among many CDU voters. Before, there had been a rule of thumb that "the CDU is the farthest right that it's okay to go." But now, with the CDU's shift leftward, this opened up a void on the right that many political scientists say allowed the AfD to gain power.
AfD
The far right. Many of its members are actual neo-Nazis.
Known as the "Alternativ fΓΌr Deutschland," this is a populist, right-wing party with extreme positions on topics like immigration and social politics. They want to deport mass numbers of Germans who have an immigrant background. In many ways, they are a mirror for the American MAGA movement. Support for the AfD is strongest in areas that used to be part of East Germany β a region that is economically depressed, older, and harbors a lot of resentment towards Besserwessis ("know-it-all Westerners") in western Germany. The Soviet connection also helps explain why East German residents tend to vote for the pro-Russian AfD.
As of 2024, every single one of the major parties had sworn not to work with the AfD and not form any coalitions with it. The CDU, however, was recently found to be holding secret meetings with the AfD, which led to massive protests in Berlin, Regensburg, and Munich immediately after the scandal broke.
The scandal with Merz β what exactly happened
In late January, Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU, put forth a drastic proposal to deny refugees asylum in Germany. The motion passed through Parliament narrowly, with the backing of the AfD. Having been put to parliament again as a bill, the bill narrowly failed.
Angela Merkel publicly criticized Merz for his collaboration with the AfD, which is a big deal, as in Germany retired politicians rarely comment on current political affairs. AP News describes it as, Merz "broke his word to not allow any measures to pass thanks to AfD's votes."
Angela Merkel was so beloved by Germans as a leader that she earned the nickname "Mutti" (Mom). Protestors carried signs that said "Fritz, hΓΆr auf Mutti" and "Mutti sagt nein." (Fritz, listen to Mom / Mom says no.) Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Munich when the news of this scandal broke β and my friend was one of them. I am proud of them, and of the Germans, for doing this.
Companies in Germany almost never take a stand on political issues right before an election, but that's changing too. Even grocery stores are releasing ads declaring that the AfD has no place here and that what the right is doing goes against their values. "Unternehmen gegen rechts" β Corporations against the right. I'm proud of them for that too.
In response to the outcry against him, Merz has stated he will never work with the far right, but trust in the CDU has really been broken. Olaf Scholz, the current chancellor, has said Merz can no longer be trusted not to form a governing coalition with the AfD. Considering that Merz is expected to become the next chancellor and the AfD is in second place, it would be very easy for him to just double back on his word and form a coalition with them anyway. I expect that's what's going to happen.
Germans understand better than anyone the fragility of democracy unless every member takes PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for upholding and safeguarding it. Nie wieder. Never again. This is deeply embedded into the German social fabric. Emblazoned on protestors' signs is Nie wieder ist jetzt β 'Never again' is now.
But there are other forces seeking to undermine German democracy β via election interference. Russia has launched a campaign to discredit the Greens by spraying construction foam in the exhaust pipes of cars. When the owner returns to their car, the foam has hardened, and the car simply won't go. It's an attack that takes seconds and is basically untraceable, with the aim of poisoning voters' opinions against climate activists and shifting them politically to the right.
Naturally, there are also influence campaigns being waged on social media. However, there's actually been a victory there for German democracy! A German court ordered the platform X to hand over data about politically related content ahead of the election, so that courts can investigate for potential election interference. So that's a win.
This is a very salient election for Germany. It's meaningful for Ukraine because Germany is the second-largest provider of aid to Ukraine after the United States. Russia wants a truce to be declared so that they can stock up on weapons, replenish their resources, and come back to finish Ukraine off, Zelensky himself has said. Russia has also been putting forth propaganda in Germany calling for Germany to stop sending aid to Ukraine. But we have to remember that this was an unprovoked invasion. It's a war of aggression, and the freedom of Ukraine and quite frankly the rest of Europe too is at stake.
I would like to register my prediction, my fear, for what will happen within the next five or the next fifteen years. Before November, I had written about my belief that if Trump won the election, he would effectively hand Ukraine over to Putin, which is pretty much what is happening. My next concern is that when Ukraine falls, Poland will be next. And then the war will be at Germany's borders.
Things are different in the 21st century. Poland is a member of NATO, so an invasion of Poland would mean roping all of Europe into the war, plus Canada. A world war. The US has made quite clear its willingness to abandon Europe, however. And the United States is what won World War II.
What will a war in Europe look like without western democracies' most powerful ally? It will not be good. Russia has China's resources that it can call on, and we've already seen it implementing North Korean missiles and soldiers in its war in Ukraine. European countries have really not been investing in their militaries β quite justifiably, they've been prioritizing quality of life over building killing machines instead. And with America so close, they thought they didn't need to.
But I see the point now. I see the point of why keeping a strong military around would be worthwhile, just in case.
I worry about Europe's future. In the most extreme scenario in my head, it takes perhaps fifteen years for part or most of continental Europe to become occupied by Russia, in a new version of the USSR. Can the US shake off its isolationism, break free of its self-created crisis, to help Europe then? Who knows where the world will be.
I have a friend living in the United States, whose parents emigrated from Germany before he was born and who are now looking at the process to become Canadian citizens. They're not turning back to the country where all the members of their family already have citizenship. They expect Russia to invade and they are not returning.
I really don't know what to say to that. I've been planning the rest of my life in Germany. It's where I want to live, it's where I want to raise my kids and grow old. I am very, very attached to this country that β somehow, already β feels to me like a homeland. But what if these fears come true?
The other thing is, as a friend of mine said, "by the time any of this happens, we'll be living in a completely different world." The equation will have completely changed. It's impossible to really predict what the world order will look like should all of these things come to pass.
I've started to take the mindset of, if things are going to get really bad, then that means right now is what we'll look back on as the good days. A Dutch friend of mine had a succinct answer to all this: "I'm not going to let some oligarchs rob me of my youth." Live your life, and enjoy what you have while you have it.