Saxony-Anhalt could hand far-right AfD its first state government, historian warns
A German historian warns that Saxony-Anhalt may become the first state to be led solely by the far-right AfD, describing the breakthrough as a disaster decades in the making rooted in eastern Germany's sense of abandonment.
A sense of abandonment among voters in eastern Germany could deliver the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) its first state government, according to a historian who warns that the party's hollow promises will only worsen an already dire situation. Marcus Böick, assistant professor in modern German history at the University of Cambridge, argues that Saxony-Anhalt, his home state, is set to hand the party a historic breakthrough.
Writing in The Guardian, Böick recalls standing on a sweltering market square in Aschersleben, the town where he was born, in the summer of 2004. A large crowd of angry people had gathered to protest against the welfare reforms introduced by the Social Democratic-Green coalition government under chancellor Gerhard Schröder, reforms that many saw as welfare cuts. The protesters chanted «We are the people!», waved handpainted placards and seemed utterly beside themselves.
Böick, who went to secondary school nearby, volunteered at the local hospital and interned at the local newspaper, says he knew the place well. Yet he found himself bewildered by the depth of the anger. He questioned what these deeply aggrieved people actually wanted, standing on a freshly renovated, almost idyllic market square, and wondered whether things were not going reasonably well for them. He also asked where the burning resentment toward the west came from, and whether the east-west divide was not supposed to be disappearing by then.
Two decades later, Böick argues that the frustrations he witnessed in 2004 have not faded but have instead been channelled into support for the AfD. The party, he contends, has capitalised on a persistent sense of abandonment among eastern Germans who feel left behind by the political establishment. Saxony-Anhalt, a state that has experienced significant economic and demographic challenges since reunification, now appears poised to make the AfD the sole leading party in a state government for the first time.
The historian warns that such an outcome would be a disaster decades in the making. He argues that the AfD's promises are hollow and that the party offers no real solutions to the structural problems facing the region. Instead, he suggests, the party's rise reflects a deep political and social crisis that mainstream parties have failed to address adequately.
Böick's commentary comes as Germany's eastern states prepare for a series of elections that are widely seen as a test of the AfD's strength. The party has already made significant gains in the region, and a victory in Saxony-Anhalt would mark a major milestone in its political ascent. The historian's account of his own bewilderment at the 2004 protests serves as a personal reflection on how the east-west divide has persisted and evolved over the past two decades.
He concludes that the AfD's rise is not an accident but the result of long-ignored grievances. The party, he says, feeds on the very sense of abandonment that he first observed on that market square in Aschersleben, and its success would only deepen the problems it claims to solve.
