The far right wing and Germany are two things that sound pretty scary when you put them
together...
This is why, even though Angela Merkel has won the elections with a high margin, it has
been a bittersweet victory.
The fact that “Alternative for Germany”, a xenophobic, ultra conservative party, has
become the third largest political force is bad enough to make Merkel rather uneasy.
“We don’t need to beat around the bush, We wanted a better result, that is clear.”
–Ángela Merkel
Here at VisualPolitik, we had planned to start this week talking about Germany…
but current news forced us to postpone that so we would have time to prepare this video,
explaining what Alternative for Germany (or AfD), is all about....
And…
yes, I know what you are thinking.
“Come on Simon!
How could you not predict that the far right would be a big hit in Germany?”
I mean, at the end of the day, xenophobic parties in “fashion” all across Europe.
Plus, AfD did great on the previous local elections
Nonetheless, most of the polls said Germans love moderation over all else.
And that’s not just the electoral polls but also sociological studies.
For instance, while in France, only 50% of the population places themselves on the center
of the spectrum, this number in Germany is as high as 76%.
Further, Germans have many reasons to be happy.
They almost didn’t suffer at all during the economic crisis and now their economy
is doing better than ever.
Salaries are rising, there is almost full employment, and companies export abroad as
if there were no tomorrow.
So the big question here is…
Who votes for the far right wing in Germany?
And most important of all….
What does Alternative for Germany want?
Are they really a radical party or is the media exaggerating?
Today we are going to answer to all of those questions.
But before we get into that, let’s take a look at the history!
A PARTY ON THE DIVIDE
Yes, it is true: today, Alternative for Germany is a populist political party with a big focus
on rejecting immigrants and refugees.
Specially they want to reject those who come from Islamic countries.
But despite all of this, its origins couldn’t be more different than what it is now.
Let’s go back to the year 2013.
Back then, all the European media talked about the debt crisis in countries like Spain, Italy
and, especially, Greece.
In case you don’t know the history here, let’s have a quick summary.
Before 2008, German banks invested a lot of money in lending money to companies and governments
in the South of Europe.
After the financial crisis of 2008, those countries couldn’t give the money back.
In fact, they needed even more cash so they could afford their current spending: things
like the salaries of the civil servants, highways and hospitals.
As you can imagine, paying day to day spending with debt it’s far from an ideal situation...
So Angela Merkel came along and said ‘OK, guys…
I will lend you some money…
I will even let you give it back whenever you can… but you’ve got to make some reforms
to your economic systems’.
This reform was AUSTERITY.
Germany, along with other Northern European countries, wanted to lend money to Italy,
Spain and Greece while demanding budget cuts so they would no longer need to borrow money
in the future… and they could afford to pay their debts.
Those conditions were seen as draconian by most of these Southern European countries…
Who is Germany to tell us how we should spend our money?
Meanwhile, some Germans were also mad at their government…
“Who are you, Merkel, to go around giving money to everyone?
This is the European Union!
Not an NGO!”.
Among those angry Germans, there were three famous economists: ALEXANDER GAULAND, BERN
LUCKE and KONRAD ADAM.
These were the founders of the party ELECTORAL ALTERNATIVE 2013, which would later become
Alternative for Germany.
Many of the first supporters where bankers and university teachers from the Western part
of Germany - cities like FRANKFURT, COLOGNE or BOHN.
Remember this, because it will become very important later on.
In their electoral manifesto, they suggested Germany should leave the EURO and go back
to the German MARK.
And why was that?
Well… because this way they could avoid bailouts to poorer economies.
And, even more importantly, they could protect their economy from a likely devaluation of
the EURO...
As we’ve said in other videos, Germany’s success was, partly, due to their strong currency.
But Spain and Greece was pushing the European Central Bank to print more money so they could
pay their debts back.
And… of course, that sounded pretty bad to many economists.
So at first AFD voters had nothing to do with your stereotype of a extreme right wing hooligan.
They were businessmen, economists and university lecturers.
This explains why the media started calling this party the ‘teachers party’ and why
they couldn’t even win a single MP during the federal elections of 2013.
Think about it… monetary policy is not the sexiest topic for an electoral campaign.
Only our subscribers are interested in those kind of topics!
Nonetheless, the fate of Alternative for Germany was to change in July 2015.
At that moment, the economist BERN LUCKE was the chairman.
But the brand new leader, FRAUKE PETRY had other plans.
Unlike the previous leaders, Petry came from the Eastern part of the country.
And this means she brought a totally different political culture.
For her, monetary policy, deficit and fiscal responsibility was not so important.
Instead, she knew there was a big niche of voters who wanted an iron fist on things like
immigration and national identity.
Besides, these kind of suggestions would give her the support of other leaders like the
Nigel Farage, from Britain’s UKIP party, Marine Le Pen, from the National Front in
France, and, of course, our favourite politician, the VisualPolitik mascot… yes, my dear viewer,
of course we are talking about the one and only…
“Leader of Germany’s far right party meets Putin allies in Moscow”
I know, I know…
Vladimir Putin is an ever popular topic here at VisualPolitik… but how can resist talking
about him!?
Now, during this time, thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Libya came to Germany...
And Angela Merkel welcomed them with arms wide open.
And…
some Germans didn’t like this.
So in the regional elections of 2016, Alternative for Germany launched an electoral program
which had nothing to do with what the founders had in mind at the beginning...
This is why many of those economists jumped ship...
Among them, Bern Lucke, who was the first president.
“This party has fallen irretrievably into the wrong hands” – Bern Lucke
Since then, Alternative for Germany has had two factions fighting each other.
On one hand we have the people leftover from this first group.
But they are less and less important everyday.
On the other hand, we have those who came under the leadership of Frauke Petry.
This new political structure means more votes, but also more problems:
The AfD’s current crisis was triggered in mid-January through a taboo-breaking speech
by the rightwinger Björn Höcke, who in a beer hall in Dresden called for a “180 degree
turn” in Germany’s culture of remembering and atoning for the Nazi era.
Regardless of how much far right wing you want to be, these kind of things are not really
cool in Germany.
And this created many problems to Mrs. Petry...
There are investigations open because, apparently, some of the proposals on her program might
be illegal.
Remember that German law is made to avoid Nazi backlash.
The issues in this party are so large that even Frauke Petry herself had to resign one
day after this last election due to fights with some more extreme elements.
Nevertheless, with or without the unfortunate quotes and the internal division, Alternative
for Germany has become the big surprise from this election.
So the question now is…
Who voted for them?
Well, let’s take a look at this…
A HISTORY OF TWO GERMANIES
Over the past few years the German economy has been on fire.
Salaries are growing, companies are exporting and inequality is almost nonexistent.
Well… actually, hold on a minute, that last bit is not sure...
Yes, of course, there is almost no poverty on the streets, and there are factories all
over the country...
But when we look at the income distribution by regions, we see a clear division.
If you pay attention to this map, you will see a blue part and a red part.
The blue part is the wealthiest.
The red is the poorest.
The blue part is what used to be Western Germany.
The red part is what it used to be Eastern Germany - communist Germany.
The Germany that went capitalist in 1989 but still doesn’t have the same standard of
living as the West.
If you visit a city like DRESDEN, in Eastern Germany, you will see lots of construction
going on.
Most of the buildings were completed just a couple of years ago.
The reunification of Germany is still very much an ongoing process.
Of course, if we compare the standard of life of an Eastern German with a Greek or a Spaniard,
it doesn’t look that bad.
But Germans like to be compared with other Germans.
And then things look way worse…
In this city, the city of SCHWEDT, Alternative for Germany got over 20% of the votes.
And a little further south, in the state of Saxony, most people are voting for the far
right...
But hold on a minute because this not just about the economy!
We are talking about a totally different culture here.
Think about it…
East Germans lived for entire generations under a totally different political system.
This means a different education, a different lifestyle, and different values.
Here, moderation is not good thing.
In fact, the LEFT WING party, DIE LINKE, gets most of its votes in Eastern Berlin.
But there is more than that!
While Western Germans spent decades remembering their Nazi past, the Government of the Democratic
Republic of Germany tried to create a new sense of national pride.
So, when an AFD candidate says that we must appreciate the courage of the German soldiers
during World War II, Germans from Cologne are frightened but Germans from Leipzig say
‘OK, whatever!’.
Okay, but now there is an important question...
Why is Eastern Germany so much against refugees and immigrants?
Well… many of you might think this is because they are tired of Muslims who don’t want
to integrate on their culture, right?
Well… here it comes a number that is going to blow your mind.
There are 9 million immigrants in Germany… and less than 500.000 live in Eastern Germany.
It makes total sense.
Those who move to Germany want to be in the wealthiest regions.
So if you walk down the streets of Dresden, you will hardly see a woman covering her head
with a HIJAB.
And guess who is the biggest immigrant community in Eastern Germany!?
Surprise, surprise!
It’s THE RUSSIANS!
More than half of the immigrants living on this side of the country come from the land
of Putin.
And, of course, they are the biggest audience for German Russia Today.
And this explains things like this…
AfD deploys double-headed eagle to snare Russian-German voters
So now the question is…
Do you think Alternative for Germany can keep growing in the next elections or will internal
divisions will end up destroying the party?
What do you think they can do during the following four years?
Please leave your answers in the comment sections below.
Meanwhile, if you want to know why is Germany the world’s factory, you can click on this
video.
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