Wolves and the Greens: why Germans are flocking to the AfD

‘Ku Klux Klan Brandenburg’ was emblazoned across the black T-shirt on a guy in line behind me at the Total petrol station in Peitz, 90 minutes south of Berlin. I considered asking why he liked the KKK but thought better of it after noting his girth and the grimace he gave me.

Popularity of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and neo-Nazi groups is surging in eastern Germany. The AfD is now the second strongest party in nationwide opinion polls after the opposition Christian Democrats and ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats. It is anti-immigrant, pro-Russian, anti-American and demands Germany quit the euro. The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Verfassungsschutz, says the AfD is ‘spreading hatred and hate speech against all types of minorities.’ The party targets Muslims and Jews with subtle messages skirting German defamation laws. An AfD election poster showing two women in bikinis has the words: ‘Burqas? We like bikinis.’