For the first time since the end of World War II a party whose politics is to the right of the establishment Christian Democratic Union/ Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) has done well in one of Germany’s Lander (states). The Alternative For Germany Party (AFD) won 44% of the votes in the Eastern German Lander of Saxony-Anhalt.

This is a major victory for the AFD and shows that the party has, at least in some Lander, have thrown off the mud that’s been thrown at them by the establishment parties of the Left and the Right. Some Germans at least have decided to ignore the claims from other parties that the AFD are the heirs of the Third Reich and have voted for the AFD, a party that has set itself in opposition to the policies of the other parties, policies that have brought Germany very low indeed.

Despite the vote by the people of Saxony-Anhalt, it’s not enough for the AFD to rule the Lander on their own, they are a few seats short of that situation. The AFD is going to need to form a coalition with other parties and it’s likely that these other parties will do their utmost to keep the AFD from governing the Lander. They will most likely erect a cordon sanitaire around the AFD and refuse to work with them. This policy might work in the short term but maybe not so much in the medium and longer term as it’s clear that the AFD is increasing in popularity and is gaining support because Germans are quite rightly angry and distressed over the effects of Germany’s open door migration policy, created by the establishment parties, that let in tens of thousands of Third Worlders under Chancellor Angela Merkel about a decade ago. This policy has brought costs and tribulation to the German people along with crime and terrorism.

The AFD sets itself up as the opposition to the policies that have created so many avoidable problems for Germany and the German people. It’s clear now that in some Landers at least, Germans are not going to be frightened away from voting for the AFD by the claims about the party from other political groupings in the German political establishment.

Does the AFD have policies that not all Germans might get on board with and have within it some members who are shall we say ‘mid 20^th century German political history enthusiasts’? Yes it does. Some members and supporters of the AFD have been less than enthusiastic about following the socially acceptable denouncement of mid 20^th century German politics and believe that Germany has sufficiently atoned for their choice to follow a uni-testicled Austrian corporal back in the 1930’s. Some of its policies on education for example with schools becoming less inclusive and more selective along with reopening special schools for the learning disabled and separating out from regular schools the ‘refugees’ that German politicians have dumped on Germans, might be a hard sell in the Landers of what was once West Germany as from what I can gather these Landers lean more liberal on the subject of education. However the main driver of support for the AFD is Germany’s migration disaster, which has made streets, women and children much more unsafe than they would have been say in the late 1990’s or before Merkel opened Germany’s borders to the Third World.

Anger at the politicians and parties behind Germany’s migration disaster is going to drive people towards the AFD not just in what was once East Germany but also elsewhere as the scale of Germany’s migration problems and the issue of imported religious extremism starts to afflict more and more Germans. As in Britain there is a disconnect between what the government and the media say about migration and Germany and what the average person sees on the streets. Like in the UK the establishment might paint migrants as contributory and safe and deserving of shelter but the ordinary German sees the reality behind this mask. They see the massive increase in rapes and sexual assaults that have been committed by migrants. They see and feel the effects of increased property crime and violence that have accompanied the arrival of Merkel’s Third Worlders. The ordinary German pays the costs of Merkel’s experiment in opening Germany’s borders and it pays via taxes and the decreased sense of security for Germany’s citizens and the increased fear of terrorism from the many Islamic extremists that Germany has inadvertently imported when it opened its borders.

Despite what the left wing activists and the centrist to Left media say a vote for the AFD is not a vote for the return of Nazism. That cannot happen, the German constitution or Basic Law will see to that as the sort of clauses in their Basic Law that would enable such a situation to occur are those parts that are unamendable. What might happen is that the current German political and intelligence establishment might replay the same mistakes as the Weimar Republic did when faced with the putative Nazis in the 1920’s. An establishment ban or freezing out of the AFD might make it more popular with Germans as they will see that it’s the politicians who have created Germany’s current problems who are behind any attacks on the AFD. This is similar to how the Weimar Republic’s use of ‘hate speech ‘ laws against the Nazis backfired as all that happened was that the Nazis used these prosecutions as ‘evidence’ that there was a Jewish / Socialist conspiracy against the Germans. Weimar’s ‘hate speech’ prosecutions of the Nazis gave them a propaganda opportunity and had a terrible unintended consequence. An increase in state action against the AFD might also popularise the AFD as they would be seen as the only party willing to say what is currently unthinkable regarding Germany’s many current problems.

The win for the AFD in Saxony-Anhalt is indeed a political watershed moment but it remains to be seen if Germans in other Lander are willing to put aside qualms about the AFD’s policies and the tar that has been brushed on them by the establishment parties and vote for the AFD primarily on the migration issue. Things have changed a lot since 2015. Germans are obviously pissed off with both Third World migration and the energy policies that have decimated Germany’s industrial sector. The Germans are now more willing to say the things that they might not have said prior to 2015 regarding energy and migration and this conversation about Germany’s problems might translate into more support for the AFD. Barring any ‘dirty tricks’ against the AFD from the German political establishment, we might see an even greater rise in support for the AFD when Federal elections next come around in 2029. We shall wait and see what happens.