Germany is changing. In spite of its Nazi past, which has kept right-wing populist movements out on the fringes of German politics, the anti-migrant AfD (Alternative for Germany) may have muscled its way in. Because of discontent with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy, the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) captured seats in regional parliaments of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. It got as many as 25% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt while in the western states, support may have reached 12.5 and 15 percent.
“We are seeing a normalization of right-wing populist movements in Germany just like elsewhere in Europe,” said Andreas Roedder, contemporary history professor at Mainz University.
While past surges of populism have been short-lived fads, this may be different. “War guilt” has kept them at bay. But now that there are 1.1 million asylum seekers that arrived in Germany in 2015 alone, many Germans are unsettled by the consequences.
The AfD party has arrived on the political scene at a fortuitous moment. It has capitalized on the fear that Germany will change dramatically. AfD was founded in 2013 on an anti-euro platform to defend Germans against free-spending southern EU nations. Since then it has even suggested that police may have to shoot at migrants to stop them from entering the country. At first it was more successful in Germany’s former communist east, which has lagged in jobs and opportunities. But now it is gaining ground in the prosperous western states.
“AfD has become a national German party,” said the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Opinion polls suggest that AfD might even capture seats in the lower house of parliament in elections in 2017 in what would be an unprecedented success for such a movement.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, known for being a straight-talker, simply described AfD as a “shame for Germany”.
“Until now, right-wing populist or extreme-right parties are considered taboo, considered like aliens in the political sphere,” said German political analyst Wolfgang Merkel in an interview with Tagesspiegel daily. Merkel believes that the taboo surrounding such right-wing populism could be soon shattered.
The right turn in German politics is part of a more global trend. If the AfD and other right-wing groups are here to stay, it is only a matter of time before Seventh-day Sabbath keepers will again become the scapegoat for ills affecting society. History will repeat itself, including the right-wing movement described in Revelation 13.
“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” Revelation 13:16-18.