The call comes after the AfD won 43.8% in the regional election in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its 2021 result and leaving Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats a distant second at 17.2 %.
Wadephul argued Thursday that the way forward was not to retreat from Germany’s commitments, but to do a better job of explaining why they matter.
He cast the challenge in stark historical terms, invoking the collapse of Germany’s democracy between the two World Wars. “Germany knows from the Weimar Republic what could happen if Democrats are not ready to defend their system,” he said. “We have to show that we have learned our lesson.”
The Weimar Republic, Germany’s first parliamentary democracy, was progressively hollowed out amid economic crisis, political paralysis and growing support for anti-democratic forces before Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933.
As for the results of Sunday’s vote, they were not only the AfD’s strongest-ever showing, but the highest vote share won by any party in the state since German reunification.
During the campaign, AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund repeatedly presented spending abroad as money missing at home. He told regional broadcaster MDR that Germany was “giving away money all over the world” and pointed specifically to support for Kyiv: “Every minute, €20,000 goes to Ukraine. That is all money we are missing.”