The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is a hard-right political party in Germany. In 2015, when Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders to over 1m migrants, the AfD was a marginal force too small to get into parliament; it has since been designated as "extremist" by Germany's security services. It achieved its best-ever result in the federal election of February 23rd 2025, and has at times overtaken the CDU/CSU of Chancellor Friedrich Merz in polls. Merz's contempt for the party is genuine, but growing ranks within the CDU, especially in eastern Germany, want to dismantle the Brandmauer (firewall) that prevents co-operation with the AfD.
In January 2025 Merz's decision to rely on AfD support for a symbolic anti-immigration measure backfired, contributing to the CDU/CSU's disappointing election performance.
On May 2nd 2025 Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), a domestic intelligence agency, labelled the entire AfD a "right-wing extremist group", in part owing to its derogatory views about non-white Germans. The ruling is suspended while the AfD appeals. Several states have added the AfD to lists of extremist organisations, putting the party in the company of revolutionary Leninists and al-Qaeda. Many Bundestag MPs, including some in the CDU, want to pursue a ban on the party; Merz is known to be sceptical. On June 29th 2025 the SPD, the junior partner in Germany's ruling coalition, formally backed calls for a ban.
The concept of "remigration"—a catch-all term for a vision of Europe with its ethnic and cultural identity rid of what the far right calls "Afro-Arab replacement migration"—has become a rallying cry inside the AfD. The term spread from French extremist circles to German and Austrian ones over a decade ago and is closely associated with Martin Sellner, a 37-year-old Austrian activist. In January 2024 Correctiv, an investigative outlet, revealed that Sellner had discussed remigration with AfD politicians at a meeting in Potsdam; the revelations sparked protests across Germany. A group of linguists anointed the term their "unword of the year". Alice Weidel subsequently co-opted the term and approved its addition to the AfD manifesto. Courts have ruled that Sellner's remigration concept violates the constitution by distinguishing between Germans on the basis of ethnicity. Were the AfD to hint that it backs his ideas fully, it would bolster calls to ban the party. In early February 2026 the AfD ordered its members to cease meeting Sellner.
Alice Weidel is the AfD's co-leader. Björn Höcke, the party's leader in Thuringia and its most outspoken firebrand, has twice been convicted of knowingly using a Nazi slogan; senior figures uncomfortable with his influence have quit or been forced out. Beatrix von Storch is deputy leader of the AfD's parliamentary group. The party was founded in 2013 as an anti-euro outfit; its small-state Eurosceptic-liberal wing coexists with a "welfarist" strain, especially in eastern branches, that rails against globalisation and financiers. Some state interior ministers have sought to bar AfD members from public-sector jobs, citing civil servants' constitutional oath, though German law is clear that membership in a legal party cannot itself suffice to block someone from a civil-service position. The precedent of the 1972 "Radical Decree"—which saw millions of public servants screened and thousands, mainly communists and other leftists, barred from jobs—haunts such proposals. One of its victims, Winfried Kretschmann, later became the Green premier of Baden-Württemberg.
The AfD won 21% of the vote in the February 2025 federal election, drawing defectors from almost every party bar the Greens and the hard left. It has eaten into conservative support in the wealthy south and hurt the Social Democrats in the post-industrial west. Its staunchest supporters are middle-aged men, typically without a university degree and living in a small town; it has started making inroads with younger male voters. Some 61% of AfD voters in February said their decision was "very easy", a higher share than any other party. Donald Trump has all but endorsed the AfD.
The AfD won nearly a quarter of the seats in the February 2025 Bundestag election. Other parties have blocked its MPs from chairing Bundestag committees or taking one of the chamber's vice-presidencies. Germany is one of a dwindling group of European countries to maintain such a cordon against the hard right.
The states holding elections in 2025-26 are Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
In local elections on September 14th 2025 in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), where over one-fifth of Germans live, the AfD tripled its vote share over the 2020 elections to 15%. AfD candidates qualified for mayoral runoffs in three Ruhr cities. Its rise is geographically uneven: it underperformed in graduate-heavy cities while growing fastest in the east—a poll put it at 39% in Saxony-Anhalt. The anti-AfD "firewall" maintained by other parties remains more or less intact; the party's rise is dividing Germany rather than sweeping it.
In Baden-Württemberg the party aims to ride anxiety over deindustrialisation to its best-ever result in a west German state; analysts note it does best in rural areas where fear of a loss of security, rather than real deprivation, drives support. Germany's cordon sanitaire ("Brandmauer") against the far right is one of a dwindling number in Europe; France's equivalent is also fraying. Marine Le Pen's National Rally is France's most popular party.
The most conspicuous breach of Germany's firewall has taken place in Brussels. In the European Parliament, legislation relating to migration and business regulation has been passed through an alliance of the centre-right with populist parties, including politicians affiliated with the AfD and the National Rally—a form of co-operation that would once have been unthinkable. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has angrily denied that his centre-right group has co-ordinated votes with allies of the AfD.
The AfD promises to raise the "pension level"—the proportion of an average salary an average worker can expect in retirement—to 70%, up from 48% today, itself a level most economists regard as unsustainable. Its manifesto promised big, regressive tax cuts. It opposes the government's heavy, debt-funded spending on defence. The German Economic Institute estimated the AfD's election promises would raise the deficit by four percentage points.
The AfD has coalesced on a conservative economic programme combining qualified support for free markets with generous handouts for families and pensioners. It promises a €20,000 pension subsidy to parents for each child they produce. Leif-Erik Holm, an AfD member of the Bundestag, has said the party was once "heterogeneous on economic policies, but there has been a clear development to a more consistent position." In February 2026 the German Economic Institute and the German Institute of Economic Research calculated that the AfD's plans would add €150bn-180bn to the deficit, which the previous year came to €120bn.
A fool and his money are soon popular.