How Alternative für Deutschland forced German politics to the right

‘When the world ends, I’ll go to Mecklenburg,’ quipped Bismarck, ‘because there, everything happens a hundred years later.’ Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has always been seen as somewhere behind the times, but has this sleepy backwater now become a portent of momentous things to come? In last weekend’s regional elections, Germany’s fledgling anti-immigration party, Alternative für Deutschland, came second, pushing Angela Merkel’s CDU into third place – in her own constituency. So was AfD’s Leif-Erik Holm right to say that this could be the beginning of the end for Merkel? And does this shock result mark the end of the beginning for AfD?

I have a soft spot for Mecklenburg (my father’s family used to live there) but as a fairly frequent visitor, for me this result came as no surprise. One of the five East German Lander which joined the Bundesrepublik after reunification, it’s a place that sums up the successes and failures of Eastern Germany.