AfD after state elections: Weidel and the legend of the “left-wing Nazis”

At the beginning of the press conference after the AfD election successes in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and, to some extent, in Berlin, Alice Weidel said that she had a failing voice. But after an hour of CDU bullying, the AfD federal chairwoman still found enough strength at the end of the federal press conference for a good dose of historical revisionism in view of the Left Party's victory in Berlin.

Weidel claimed, not for the first time, that Hitler was also a socialist: "Adolf Hitler pursued completely left-wing policies. He was a left-wing radical, a left-wing extremist." If you look at history, this is confirmed. In addition, the Berlin election results remind you of Erich Honecker, said Weidel, visibly upset.

Anyone who actually deals with “history” knows that right-wing extremists and conservatives have been happy to use the legend of the alleged “left-wing Nazis” since the post-war period - to relativize their own responsibility, and later also to distort history and trivialize their own ideology. For the sake of completeness: Hitler actually allied himself with conservative elites and entrepreneurs and, immediately after seizing power, smashed the unions, reversed the achievements of the workers' movement, and imprisoned and murdered communists and social democrats.

The NSDAP was anti-Marxist, the so-called “social revolutionary” wing was primarily anti-Semitic, and the Nazis primarily expropriated Jews. They were driven by ideologies of inequality, such as those represented by the AfD and the so-called “New Right” today. The reversal of guilt and the railing against the alleged “cult of guilt” are primarily intended to obscure ideological continuities.

When a Dutch journalist asked Weidel why she was doing this perpetrator-victim reversal, whether she was actually confused or whether she was deliberately confusing her voters, Weidel said with a raised index finger: "Maybe you're a little confused!" If fascism returns, it will not be called fascism, but anti-fascism, said Weidel.

This is what the woman who wants to become Chancellor in 2029 says. Your extreme right-wing party is leading in the polls and sees no reason for moderation after the election victories in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Your party wants to form the government in Saxony-Anhalt soon and could try to make its revisionist worldview mainstream with more than just a state parliament president. On Monday, the ARD capital studio reported that the AfD and BSW were able to agree on a candidate for the state parliament presidency.

Because it was the last question during the press conference, there was no time left to ask how Weidel felt about Nikolaus Kramer, a member of the state parliament who had just been elected in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In an internal AfD chat, he commented on a photo of the SS with the words: “A black bloc is not fundamentally shit.” Thommy Thormann, who would “outlaw” counter-demonstrators, and Thore Stein, who was active in the nationalist association “Sturmvogel”, also won direct mandates. Kramer even won with 51.2 percent.

It seems even more absurd when this anti-democratic party claims that it wants to shake hands with all parties represented in the Schwerin state parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. At the same time, Dario Seifert, general secretary of the AfD MV and once a member of the NPD youth, exposes this phrase as unbelievable. He categorically rules out cooperation with the SPD, the Left and the Greens - the course remains, unsurprisingly, fundamental opposition.

With 32 members, the AfD is the strongest force in the state parliament for the third time and can block the state constitutional court with its blocking minority. Although it missed its goal of an absolute majority, it came closer to its medium-term plan of destroying the CDU. The Christian Democrats remained below the five percent threshold.

With the state elections, the AfD is moving closer to its goal of authoritarian social restructuring. The party system in the Berlin Republic is showing cracks; in Saxony-Anhalt it is in ruins. The AfD stands there grinning – their strategy is working.

The strategy that got the AfD there is to divide society along culture war issues and migration in order to plunge the Union into an identity crisis and replace it in the long term. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania she succeeded for the first time in parliament. The CDU under Merz has completely fallen for the AfD with its anti-migration and anti-wokeness course and at the same time has expanded the discourse for extreme right-wing positions, while voters prefer the original.

The normalized AfD confidently calls itself the People's Party and actually receives broad support - especially from working and self-employed men before retirement age. No surprise: In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD scored particularly well in rural regions and former NPD strongholds. It remained weak in larger cities with less migration, low unemployment and higher incomes. The voter migration shows that the AfD primarily motivated around 66,000 non-voters, but also benefited from swing voters from the SPD (48,000) and CDU (32,000).

In Berlin, the AfD achieved a record of 16.2 percent, but fell short of expectations. Nevertheless, she won 22 direct mandates - mainly in the east of the city, but also in western outskirts such as Spandau and Reinickendorf.