The AfD’s electoral successes raise worried questions. Have Germans forgotten the lessons of history? Is the scenario that led to the downfall of the Weimar Republic repeating itself? The answer is no: Berlin is not Weimar.
Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the history of National Socialism is still present in Germany, although the conditions that led to Hitler are not comparable with those today: Reich Party Rally of the NSDAP in Nuremberg in 1936.
Getty
Hans Frank, the former Governor General of Poland who was executed in Nuremberg in October 1946 as one of the main war criminals, hurled a remarkable sentence at the forensic psychologist in his death cell. When he learned that the former Reich Chancellor von Papen had been released and arrested again shortly afterwards, he shouted: “You thought you were free! Don’t you know that there is no freedom from Hitlerism?”
The ruin of 1945 was massive, the political and moral catastrophe of the “Third Reich” lasting. To this day, no one in Germany who wants to be taken seriously in political discourse can invoke Hitler. The AfD, which likes to play on nationalist resentment, knows this too. Its exponents steer clear of National Socialism in public statements. Of course, they consciously allow for ambivalence.
The AfD’s electoral successes in the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia have raised concerns in Germany and far beyond. This has a lot to do with Hitler’s legacy and the presence of National Socialism in the German post-war consciousness. Have Germany’s voters forgotten the lessons of history? Are we dealing with new Nazis? Is the scenario that led to the downfall of the Weimar Republic repeating itself?
The weakness of the rulers
The answer to these questions must begin with an analysis of voting behavior. It must examine the relationship between post-war German society and National Socialism. And it must critically examine the analogies often thrown into the debate between today’s Berlin Republic and the Weimar Republic.
The AfD is first and foremost a protest party that addresses migration and internal security. It specifically focuses on the helplessness of the established parties, who cannot find an answer to these issues. The consensus governing of the grand coalition and the traffic light government’s refusal to call grievances by their name, such as the excessive demands placed on local authorities, have facilitated its rise.
Hitler’s shadow has accompanied the Federal Republic from the very beginning. As time has passed since the war, the intensity of the conflict has increased and has settled at a high level over the past twenty years. However, this has often been done in a rigid, ritualized manner. It took some time for the Germans to become the “good Germans” of the Federal Republic after the war.
Living with lies was a price to pay for learning how to deal with each other again. Only when the generations who had been entangled in the Nazi era through their own actions reached retirement age did the reticence to discuss individual Nazi pasts disappear.
The inability of the AfD
After the catastrophe, Germany showed “model student behavior.” It strove to become the most liberal, most tolerant and best Germany that had ever existed in history. Opinion embargoes were the consequence. Accusing someone of apologising for National Socialism was and is the most effective method of ending a debate.
The AfD leadership knows this. And has so far provided little evidence that could be interpreted as a defense of National Socialism. The untenable statement by the AfD’s top candidate Krah in the European Parliament elections, in which he trivialized the SS, is an exception.
What is said behind closed doors can only be guessed at. What is clear, however, is that the party is becoming increasingly radicalized. On a European scale, it has moved so far to the right that Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen have terminated their cooperation with it and expelled the AfD members from their joint group in the European Parliament.
The real scandal, however, is the AfD’s inability to find worthy words of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism in parliaments and at public events, the indecent attempt to instrumentalize those who resisted National Socialism for their own political purposes, and the inability to clearly name the crimes of the regime – above all the murder of millions of Jews – and to understand them as part of Germany’s culture of remembrance.
The fragile republic
If almost a third of voters in Saxony and Thuringia voted for the AfD today, they probably did so with the approval of this forgetfulness of the past. However, this is also a worrying sign that public commemoration of the Nazi era has often become a mere ritual. And it raises doubts as to whether historical science and schools are still fulfilling their mission: to impart knowledge about the history and crimes of the “Third Reich” and to create sensitivity for the responsibility that this entails for Germany.
It is not the case that Germany’s own history plays no role in political debates; on the contrary, comparisons with the Weimar Republic are easy to make. Weimar was often used as an alibi in the Federal Republic when a bogeyman was being painted on the wall. However, the starting point in the Weimar Republic was very different from the situation today.
In Weimar, the center was increasingly marginalized and ultimately became no man’s land. Left-wing and right-wing radical parties had whipped each other up. Weimar was a “republic without republicans.” The presidential cabinets formed since 1930 on the basis of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution depended almost exclusively on the favor of the Reich President. This was the backdrop for the dramatic rise of National Socialism and the legal revolution of the “seizure of power” in January 1933.
Hitler had paved the way for this with his “movement”. He had the majority of the petty bourgeoisie and the civil servants on his side. His program was equally popular with the captains of industry and the unskilled workers. The crisis of the Weimar Republic unfolded against the backdrop of an international economic crisis. And it had a lot to do with the special conditions of Germany’s situation after the First World War, especially with the defeat that was felt by large sections of the population as a burden.
Das Marches
The Federal Republic has learned its lesson from the very beginning. All of the constitutional provisions contained in the Basic Law are responses to the failure of the Weimar Republic: the five percent clause, which is intended to give stability to parliament, the constructive vote of no confidence, the waiver of the right of parliament to dissolve itself and to vote out ministers, the reduced role of the Federal President in terms of its powers, the strength of the states, the eternity clause and the prominent position of basic rights.
One of the strengths of German democracy is the ability to make political decisions on a broad basis. The tendency towards consensus and governing with cross-party coalitions has its price, however: the tendency towards the lowest common denominator, the inability to implement fundamental reforms and the complacency with which the leaders of state and society celebrate the status quo. The difficulty in accepting criticism and the tendency to quickly raise the sign “Democracy is in danger” in the event of conflict can also be explained by Germany’s historical trauma.
The end of Weimar and the rise of Hitler are and remain a warning sign. But the current political crisis has completely different causes than those that led to the dissolution of the Weimar Republic: it is primarily due to the failure of the heads of state, the helpless management of the traffic light federal government and the inability of parliament to find appropriate answers to the pressing problems.
The result is that the population is turning away from the established parties. The damage that the AfD’s entry into more and more parliaments at all levels is causing domestically primarily affects the coalition options when forming a government. The damage that the AfD can cause in foreign relations is immense and has the potential to significantly impair Germany’s position in the world. The fact that this is the case is largely due to Hitler’s long shadow and the permanent presence of National Socialism in the German post-war consciousness.
Ulrich Schlie is a historian and Henry Kissinger Professor for Security and Strategy Research at the University of Bonn.
