Germany’s far-right seeks to convert Trump power into vote gains

KARLSRUHE, Germany — Shouting so loudly he barely needed a microphone, Martin Hess had an unyielding message for opponents of Alternative for Germany, the party beloved by Elon Musk and surveilled by German intelligence for suspected far-right extremism.

“We will not let anybody or anything stop us!” said Hess, an ex-policeman turned lawmaker with the AfD, as it is more commonly known.

Hess, 54, a suited, stocky man with drill-sergeant hair and a brawny neck, was speaking Wednesday at “Deutschland Zuerst!” — or “Germany First!” — a rally in the western city of Karlsruhe.

It is a pivotal moment for the AfD ahead of Germany’s national election Sunday. The barely decade-old party is polling at 21% — double the last vote of 2021 and likely enough for second place.

This is part of a far-right surge sweeping Europe, where hard-line nationalists have already cultivated ties with President Donald Trump’s White House. Musk and Vice President JD Vance have both endorsed the AfD, with Musk speaking at a recent rally via video conference, and one of its leaders attended Trump’s inauguration.

On Sunday, the expected overall victor is Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union once helmed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel, which is topping polls at 28%. The current chancellor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Union, is languishing in third at 16%. It was the November implosion of his coalition, a disagreement about Germany’s budget deficit, that sparked this snap ballot.

The final results expected Monday will have global reverberations. The world’s third-largest economy has enjoyed decades of steady, consensus-driven politics guided by its memory of the Nazi era. Sunday’s vote could yield an upheaval.

“We hope to establish a new partnership of conservatives, like we can already see in the U.S.,”  Marc Bernhard, another AfD lawmaker, said at the conference center in Karlsruhe, where a mostly white, mostly male audience ate sausages and pretzels, washed down with fizzy pilsner.

In Duisburg, a city to the north, AfD candidate Sascha Lensing told NBC News that U.S. support was “unbelievably important” and “a giant upswing.” At a rally in nearby Marl, supporters wore red “Make Germany Great Again!” hats.

The White House’s new German friends want to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants, throttle border security, shrink the state and cut taxes. The party rejects established climate science, wants to scrap support for Ukraine in favor of improved Russia ties, and says Germans should stop apologizing for the Holocaust.

That has appalled some Jewish groups, such as the International Auschwitz Committee, which describes the AfD as “a threat to democracy.” It’s also part of the reason the AfD remains a pariah in the Bundestag, whose parties have vowed to uphold the informal “firewall” against far-right cooperation, seen as a bulwark against fascism.

These concerns are not confined to the legislature. Germany’s domestic BfV intelligence agency is surveilling the AfD on suspicion of far-right extremism, upheld by two levels of regional courts.

The AfD’s response has echoes of Trump’s overhaul of federal agencies. Bernhard wants to reform the judiciary and intelligence services so they are “more independent” and “refocus on the real dangers” such as “Islamist terrorism.”

Opponents fear what these institutions might look like revamped by a party they accuse of extremist rhetoric.

Supporters of leader Alice Weidel chant “Alice für Deutschland,” meaning “Alice for Germany.” That’s a near homophone of “Alles fur Deutschland,” or “everything for Germany,” a motto used by Adolf Hitler’s paramilitary SS.

Bernhard labeled it “ridiculous” and “bulls—“ to suggest that supporters have deliberately used this slogan. He said “98% of the population” had no idea this was “used by any organization in the Third Reich.” But some observers say it’s exactly the kind of provocative wordplay the AfD deploys to skirt Germany’s laws prohibiting Nazi endorsement.

AfD firebrand Björn Höcke was last year adjudged to have overstepped that line. He was fined 13,000 euros (around $13,500) for using the slogan at a campaign rally. Höcke, a retired history teacher, said he didn’t know it was associated with the SS.

NBC News has asked the White House, Weidel and Höcke for comment on the U.S.-AfD relationship, as well as the party’s policies and rhetoric.

AfD supporters ask how the party can be bigoted when led by Weidel, 46, a Mandarin-speaking former investment banker with a Sri Lankan-born same-sex partner. She says this does not contradict the AfD’s platform of opposing same-sex marriage in favor of “traditional families” of fathers, mothers and plentiful children to counterbalance mass migration.

Others disagree. The Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany said last month that Weidel merely “serves as a figurehead who is supposed to disguise the party’s massive anti-queer sentiment.”

Until recently, she was seen as a relative moderate. That changed at the party conference last month, when Weidel first used the term “remigration” to advocate the mass deportation of undocumented migrants or incomers who commit crimes.

That caused uproar —in a country that remembers deporting and murdering Jews and other groups. And yet support for the idea has been fueled by a recent spate of high-profile attacks by people with migrant backgrounds. That’s despite researchers at the University of Munich this week releasing a study that found that there is no link between migration and crime rates, which are decreasing.

That study “does not prove anything,” Hess, the AfD lawmaker, said in Karlsruhe. “Anyone who believes these attacks have nothing to do with migration is crazy.”

The stance has alarmed not just liberals, but also big business. CEOs from Deutsche Bank, Volkswagen and others have warned against deporting migrant workers upon whom Germany desperately relies.

“We have more than 70 former refugees working for us — from Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and various African countries,” said Bonita Grupp, managing partner of Trigema, a textiles dynasty founded by her great-grandfather in 1919. 

The firm is based in Burladingen, a small town with snow-dusted roofs and forested hills around 2 hours southeast of Karlsruhe. In European elections last year, almost 40% of the local population voted for the AfD.

That shows how the party has grown beyond its East German base and into the industrialized West. Here, the German behemoth has not escaped the global cost-of-living crisis and is on the brink of recession.

The AfD has wooed not only those with tighter wallets, but also youths receptive to its savvy use of TikTok. Support rose 11% among 16-25-year-olds in the summer’s European elections. 

“Germany is really unsafe, the immigration is uncontrolled and something has to change,” said Yusuf, 18, among a group of teenagers at the AfD event in Karlsruhe.

“First, I also thought the AfD were fascists, but since I informed myself I knew that the AfD isn’t a fascist party,” added Yusuf, whose Tunisian grandfather came to Germany in the 1960s. He declined to give his last name, walking away when asked if he experiences racism within the party.

Back in Burladingen, Carolin, 36, a tax adviser, pauses when asked which party she will vote for.

“The blue one,” she said, appearing to choke on her words as she pointed to an AfD lamppost placard.

She too declined to give her last name, wary of being judged by her friends and family. She doesn’t agree with the AfD’s policies restricting abortions or rejecting female boardroom quotas. “But people are angry with the government because they can’t pay their bills. And I hope they will fix it.”

This sudden groundswell has dismayed Erwin Staiger, 76, who has lived here for 50 years and retired as its nonparty political mayor last year.

He wonders whether the loss of the local butcher and baker or the fading of community spirit may have boosted the AfD in a region with little direct experience of migration. He sees the AfD offering criticisms but few real solutions. He fears the consequences, not just for domestic politics, but also the risk that the war in Ukraine could spread through Europe if Kyiv is abandoned by the West.

“The world is turned upside down,” he said of upheavals in Germany and Washington. “I am really concerned what is going to happen” he added, for “our democracy, but also for peace.”