Electing the far-right in Saxony
“Germany’s far-right AfD will win the next election in Saxony”, is the most common prediction for the former East-Germany state of Saxony. Saxony’s next election is scheduled for 1st September 2024.
The state is home to four million people and bordering Poland and the Czech Republic. Saxony is a remote and some say “backward” region which is also often defamed as “Dim or Dark Germany” – Dunkeldeutschland.
By mid-August, public polling suggests that the far-right or neo-Nazi AfD might receive 32% of voter support. In that region, Hitler’s Nazi party received only 14.4% in 1930. Whereas today’s neo-Nazis will most likely get more than twice as much.
It is also predicted that Germany’s traditional conservatives, the CDU, might get 29%, while the newly founded BSW 15%, Germany’s environmentalist, The Greens: 5%; the ex-socialist “The Left”: 5%; and the social-democratic SPD also 5%. In other words, the domineering political force in Saxony might well be the AfD.
In short, right-wing extremists in Saxony are getting stronger and stronger. The regional town of Sebnitz located on the Czech border is as typical town in Saxony.
The town has everything that its 9,500 inhabitants need for a good life in a democratic state like Saxony and a democratic country like Germany. Germany is ranked 5th on Ranking of Countries by Quality of Democracy.
Nevertheless, Germany’s right-wing extremists are gaining more support. Many fear that the consequences of the election might turn out to elect the far-right, right-wing extremists, and outright neo-Nazis.
Meanwhile, Sebnitz’s local square has a café where a German with Syrian roots serves ice-cream and drinks. Locals have a quick espresso, and a Ukrainian woman gets a waffle ice cream for her children.
In the café sits a young teacher who is a local Greens councillor since 2019. Now, he is running as a candidate in the upcoming election. The Sebnitz councillor has moved back to Sebnitz from the state capital Dresden.
Sebnitz is also the town the neofascist AfD might get between 40% and 50%. Yet, this is hardly visible in the historic town centre.
Right-wing extremists are omnipresent in Saxony and Sebnitz. In the cozy-looking town and despite the current election campaign, there are not many AfD posters, neo-Nazi insignias and graffiti visible.
Yet, right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis are somehow ever-present. For years, the share of AfD votes has been rather stable with, on average, between 30% and 40%.
Since a local election in June 2021, the neofascist AfD (39.4%) had been the strongest party in Sebnitz’s city council. The AfD holds six out of 18 seats and has successfully replaced Germany’s conservatives (the CDU) that got just four seats. Worse was to come.
In the European elections in June 2024, the neofascist AfD even received a whopping 47.2%. Perhaps ever since the thuggish and violent neo-Nazi “baseball bat years” of the 1990s, the town, the state of Saxony, and perhaps the entire former East-Germany has vibrant, well-organised, and brutal “far right cliques”.
The neofascist AfD feeds off those years using the pathologies that came with the arrival of neoliberal capitalism to the former East-Germany to its advantage.
Cunningly, the AfD reduces every social and economic problems to one single issue: foreigners. The AfD offers simple solutions for the simple-minded. Its far-right propaganda has made locals believe that foreigners have taken over all the jobs and receive – unlike the locals – generous state support.
The far-right solution is simple: foreigners need to be thrown out. It is a remake of blaming the Jews (1930s). The Juden raus! became Ausländer raus! Today, this is still a powerful far-right propaganda. It can still divert attention away from neoliberal capitalism re-directing it towards – an invented – enemy.
Then, it was the Jew (1930s) and now it is the foreigner (2024). Nazi propaganda (then) and neo-Nazi propaganda (today) work surprisingly well.
Yet, the local labour market increasingly depends on the exact opposite of what the AfD’s remigration plan has in mind against non-German migrants. Local businesses fear that the rise of the far-right is damaging the image of Saxony and driving away much needed foreign job applicants.
Meanwhile, a local civil engineer and his wife (both from Syria) have been living in Sebnitz since 2010. His wife works as a doctor at the local hospital where several senior doctors are immigrants as well.
The same goes for the nursing staff. No-one can replace them when the AfD’s forced deportation plans become reality.
Unsurprisingly, the AFD has no solution to that. It also has no solution when migrant job applicants drop as the former East-Germany is perceived to becoming more and more racist and xenophobic. Yet, the Syrian couple is not afraid of the future.
The German Syrian couple is now respected. Their daughter has just graduated with one of Saxony’s best high-school certificates. Like her mother, she too, is looking forward to studying medicine. Her parents believe that studying in Saxony’s capital of Dresden is safer than in Berlin or Hamburg.
Meanwhile, indifference and ignorance towards the far-right is booming. Yet things were worse in the year 2015. That was the year when neo-Nazis organised anti-asylum rallies. From that time on, those who supported refugees in Sebnitz were openly attacked, bullied, and threatened.
Local neo-Nazis turned Merkel’s Willkommenkultur (culture of welcoming) into a xenophobic and white-race only nightmare. It worked for the neo-Nazis until the next issue came along.
The next issue used by local neo-Nazis and the far-right was the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2023. German neo-Nazis fabricated images of an impending “Merkel Diktatorship” that never came.
Instead of the fear-inducing Merkel– and COVID-Dictatorship, what came next was another neo-Nazi shock for the city. In summer of 2023, right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis organised a pogrom-like raid of an Afghan refugee family and their accommodation injuring two sons.
This was followed by large-scale marches and rallies of a violent neo-Nazi outfit called “The Free Saxons”. About 500 local neo-Nazis marched against the family that had just been attacked.
The counter-rally was disappointing. A measly group of just 50 to 60 people came to the local Protestant Church for a peace prayer.
In the far-right dominated Sebnitz, a local priest admitted that it is generally not easy to win people over for pro-democratic engagement. This also concerned a local Greens councillor. It is the city-wide indifference to the rise of the far-right. Many are resigning, kept to themselves and looked the other way.
Still, the Greens’ councillor, like many democratic politicians, parliamentarians and state officials, has experienced the rising wave of attacks and insults – particularly on online platforms.
Many suffer from such attacks since they have become politically active. Only recently, democratic politicians and election campaigners were targeted by the far-right and neo-Nazis while putting up campaign signs in a neighbouring town.
Like Trump in the USA, democratic politicians are insulted by the far-right as “traitor of the people”.
Back in Sebnitz and while campaigning for one of Germany’s democratic political parties, campaigners for democratic political parties are often verbally abused by far-right thugs from cars that drive by.
In a few cases, campaigners could spot the license plates and filed a complaint against far-right thugs – often without visible results.
Local mayor Ronald Kretzschmar who was elected in 2022 on the ticket of a political party called “Freie Sachsen” is linked to Bavaria’s Freie Wähler.
Bavaria’s Freie Wähler boos – Auwanger – was once happy to write antisemitic leaflets about “jews getting a free ride through the chimneys of Auschwitz”.
Auwanger says, he found the leaflets in his backpack and has no idea how they came to be in his rucksack.
Meanwhile, Sebnitz’s Kretschmar offers a classical conservative and far-right-appeasing line by saying, “if we don’t manage to listen to the base, we won’t win people back”. It insinuates that AfD supporter, the far-right, and local racists are “the base”.
Simultaneously, he is also worried about the local and often well-armed Reichsbürger squad. This squadron is a rather weird mixture between the far-right, people seeking a nostalgic return to Hitler’s Nazi-Reich or the German Empire, and adjacent neo-Nazis.
Today, there are still court cases pending on the Reichsürgers’ plan for a coup d’état to convert democratic Germany into an authoritarian dictatorship.
Next to highly active and extremely well-organised far-right groups in Saxony, the Reichsbürgers’ imperial war flags are visible in local residences. Yet very few locals report when they see the Imperial Reichs-flag.
Unlike the Swastika flag, the criminality of Reichs-insignias is not clearly regulated. Unfortunately, state prosecutors remain lenient about right-wing extremism in Saxony.
Beyond all that, the economic conditions in Sebnitz do not explain the growth of the far-right AfD. For example, local and regional tourism remains an important factor. It has recovered rather well after the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2023.
Even better, there are more workers moving to Sebnitz than are moving away from this rather remote region. The good news even extends to the fact that unemployment in the region is the lowest compared to the whole of the state of Saxony.
In Sebnitz as throughout the former East-Germany, companies complain about a shortage of skilled workers. As a consequence, foreign workers are becoming more and more important.
Simultaneously, more people die than are born as an aging society that is rapidly advancing. By 2040, there is a threat of a population decline of up to 30%.
In many former East-German city centres, houses and shops are already empty because of an acute labour shortage. For many businesses in the former East-Germany it is clear that the rise of the far-right and the AfD is poison for an investment-friendly climate.
Yet, Sebnitz also has an association called “Aktion Zivilcourage”. They have organized an annual festival, participated in anti-far-right rallies and human chains, and worked against the obsessively racist “remigration” and deportation plans of the AfD. History is never far away.
The AfD’s plan to deport people happened in a country that once “deported” Jews into death camps. Historical facts like these does not seem to deter Sebnitz’ locals to vote for the AfD.
Set against right-wing extremists and the AfD is also an organisation that is setting up an “action week” called “(D)a day for Sebnitz”. That will encourage locals to participate in pro-democratic community activities.
Beyond that, there is also a “colourful circle” of ordinary people, members of a local nature conservation association, a BSW’s city councillor, a teacher, a church worker, etc.
At the beginning, in 2015/16, the group got together to help refugee families. Immediately, the group was “aggressively approached” by local far-right and adjacent neo-Nazi outfits.
At the first meeting, the group didn’t dare to leave the curtains on the windows open. Germany’s far-right, neo-Nazis, and the AfD operate with threats and intimidations – a classical fascist thuggish strategy.
Yet, the experience of not being alone was good for the group. In the meantime, the group was able to show that there is “another Sebnitz” – a democracy and non-fascist Sebnitz.
Still, the group can also see the successes of the AfD, their neofascist “festivals”, and their so-called “Monday rallies”. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the neo-Nazi marches – euphemistically called “Monday rallies” –manufactured hallucinatory phantasmagorias of Germany becoming a COVID dictatorship. These were spiced up by other far-right conspiracy fantasies.
Set against all this are weekly youth get-togethers under the umbrella of Aktion Zivilcourage. There are also – and this is not unique to the former East-Germany – “controversial” discussions about democracy.
The group and Aktion Zivilcourage also discuss nature conservation in a local national reserve, the war in Ukraine, and so on. There is also a rather successful “amateur” theatre called “Theatre Libre” offering a lot of comedy. It is dedicated to entertain and educate children and Sebnitz’s youth.
The theatre wants to create a new “we” beyond the neofascist AfD’s ideology of “Germanness”. The theatre includes “the other side” (read: locals with right-wing attitudes) and those who are passionately committed to democratic coexistence. Yet, they are also forced to watch how parties like the AfD are still growing.
Many in the theatre and in the Aktion Zivilcourage are still perplexed about the “irrationality of many right-wing voters”.
Similarly, far-right and AfD supporters often argue the well-worn-out line of, “I am not a racist, but…”. Or, “I have nothing against many of the asylum seekers, but…”. Of course, it is projected that the Aktion Zivilcourage will no longer receive state support should the far-right AfD win in the September election.
With that, the AfD hopes is to establish their very own version of a Nazi-like Volksgemeinschaft. The upcoming election on 1st September will show if the AfD is getting closer to an Aryan-only future.
Photo: (source: https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/terra-x-history/im-osten-ganz-rechts-von-den-skinheads-zur-afd-100.html)
Born on the foothills of Castle Frankenstein, Thomas Klikauer (PhD) is the author of more than 1,000 publications, including a book on The AfD and on German Conspiracy Fantasies.
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