People who think that the AfD is not the worst option for Poland, and who hope that the party will "do the migration thing," should consider whether it is in Poland's interest to have a Germany ruled by a party that elevates extreme selfishness to the rank of the highest virtue, says Patrycja Tepper. an analyst in the "Germany-Europe-world" team at the Poznan-based Western Institute.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
Jakub Majmurek: How do Germans view the fact that Elon Musk has taken an interest in their politics and joined the election campaign on the side of the AfD?.
Patrycja Tepper: According to a YouGov survey, 74 percent of Germans have a negative view of the issue. Most do not like Musk's meddling in German politics, he himself does not inspire confidence. In contrast, as many as 70 percent of AfD voters view him positively. The party is constantly slandering the establishment and global elites, but so far whenever a member of these elites has offered it a helping hand, it has gratefully accepted it.
What are the reasons for Musk's negative image in Germany?
Germany is a much more anti-American and much less pro-capitalist society than Poland, which also affects the assessment of the world's richest man. For example, there is a negative assessment of how Musk manages the X portal - the former Twitter - and, above all, how it has been flooded with hateful content in the name of a specifically understood freedom of speech.
There is also a critical look at what is happening at Tesla's Grüneheide factory in Brandenburg near Berlin, where some 12,000 people work. A survey of workers was recently conducted and only one-tenth of them believe they will live to retire there. Working conditions are so harsh that 9 out of 10 workers complain of back pain, arm pain, other ailments. The factory is managed in a rather authoritarian manner, different from what is accepted within German corporate culture. The plant has come into conflict with the IG Metall labor union, which is a powerful institution in Germany.
Amusingly enough, local AfD politicians had also previously protested against the factory, as there were fears that its operations would result in a shortage of drinking water for Grüneheide residents.
How do Germans explain why Musk took an interest in their country? Is it about securing economic interests? About influencing the politics of the country with the largest economy in the EU?.
There are theories that Musk gets his knowledge of Germany and Alternative for Germany from the X portal, most often from posts by the AfD itself, which has the largest social media reach among German parties. The Alternative puts out an alarmist message, portraying Germany as a country in a state of collapse, where a "great replacement" of the local population by migrants is taking place. Perhaps a similar message has screwed Musk into German politics while radicalizing him - it could be said that the billionaire has become a victim of his own platform's algorithm.
I think it can't be ignored that the AfD's views are simply very close to Musk, especially its fight against "woke ideology." It certainly doesn't bother him either that the AfD is a very neoliberal party, demanding a maximum reduction in the role of the state in the economy. Musk has repeatedly complained about German bureaucracy, complaining that he had to prepare a "truckload of documents" to get his German Tesla factory up and running at all. The AfD has 20 percent support and, thanks to its social media reach, the ability to influence the political debate in Germany - which could also be attractive to Musk.
How significant is X in shaping the German political debate?
It is a social medium much less popular than Facebook and Instagram, but it is politically significant. Politicians often act impulsively there, making statements that violate good morals, which then often becomes a topic for the press.
When Musk took over X, and the platform was flooded with aggressive content, many German politicians and institutions ostentatiously left the portal: for example, the first channel of German public radio Deutschlandfunk, many ministries, and Green vice-chancellor Robert Habeck. However, he returned for the election campaign period, as did other politicians, because few were active on the platforms they moved to. In Germany, the problem of unbridled debate on X was taken very seriously by politicians, and attempts were made to counteract it somehow, but without much effect.
In the UK, Musk's disputes with leading politicians, including the prime minister Starmer, simply took the form of vulgar muzzling. In Germany, it was similar whether it was more successful in adhering to the rules of decorum?.
No, it failed completely. Musk called Chancellor Scholz a fool, often reposting his statements with insulting comments. He called German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier an "anti-democratic tyrant."
Do you think Musk's support will help the AfD?
I think it still will, albeit marginally, in the upcoming elections. The AfD has already reached the limit of its current support and Musk will, at most, help to reassure people already ready to vote for the party in this decision. Because for now it is rather impossible for the Alternative to win more than twenty-something percent of the vote in February.
Certainly the fact that the world's richest man is talking friendly with party leader Alice Weidel helps further normalize the AfD. It was no coincidence, by the way, that during the interview Weidel spoke about Hitler, arguing that he was in fact a socialist or even a communist, and that the story portraying him as a right-wing politician has been distorted. That's because many German voters who are considering voting for the AfD shy away from doing so because of their memory of how far-right governments have ended for Germany in the past. So the party is trying to convince voters that Hitler never had anything to do with any right-wing parties.
Global changes, set in motion by Trump's victory, do not help the AfD? Are they not moving the Overton window in a favorable direction for them?".
Shifting the Overton window is a constant, conscious tactic of the party. Certainly the change in the global context helps the Alternative, it provides an argument: look, the whole world is coming to similar conclusions. The global trend is also changing the approach of mainstream parties, such as the Christian Democrats, who are wondering whether it is necessary to adopt the AfD's language, such as on migration, in order to win elections. The recent joint vote by the CDU and FDP together with the AfD on a resolution calling for tougher migration policies, and later by the CDU and AfD on new migration laws, had a very important symbolic meaning, it was a breaking of a certain taboo.
At the same time, as many as 70 percent of German voters oppose allowing the AfD to govern. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats, rules out a coalition with the party. Such declarations are also meant to convince people: don't vote for the AfD, because the AfD will never govern and will not realize its demands.
Do you think the cordon around the AfD will hold? At the federal level it probably will, but can we imagine that in the coming years a government will be formed in one of the states with the AfD?.
By all means. It is already difficult to build coalitions in some states in the east without the AfD. To form a majority, the mainstream parties had to agree with the leftist-populist Sahr Wagenknecht Movement. There was never officially a cordon sanitaire around this party, but an alliance with it was a politically difficult move for the Christian Democrats. So I won't be surprised if, after an election in one of the states, the Christian Democrats find they have no choice but to form some sort of local coalition with the AfD.
What is driving support for the AfD most today?
Certainly migration. The recent terrorist attacks in Germany have undermined the sense of security, and associating it with migration greatly favors the AfD. Another issue is the economic situation, Germans' fears that their financial situation will worsen.
We know who votes for the AfD? Who is their average voter today?.
We more or less know. It's mostly middle-aged people, and you don't see the party's support clearly skewed toward seniors or the youngest voters. The electorate is dominated by people with secondary and primary education, with the AfD having the least support among voters with a university education. Many voters for Alternative for Germany are workers and unemployed. Most are concerned about their financial situation. The party has more support among men than women, and far more support in eastern Germany, in the former GDR, than in the west - Berlin is the exception.
In general, three major groups can be distinguished among AfD voters: those worried about their financial situation, those disillusioned with politicians and democracy, and finally - and not at all an insignificant group - supporters of authoritarian systems, generally with far-right views.
Where do the disillusioned with democracy come from in Germany? Are they residents of the eastern part of the country?.
To a large extent, yes. For years, residents of the eastern states have had the feeling that politicians acting locally have failed, and that Berlin cares only for the interests of the western part of the country. Added to this is the belief that after reunification key issues were imposed on them by the West German elite, that East German society had no opportunity to take part in shaping the new reality.
Thus, there are opinions that democracy as a system is to blame for various problems, and it might be worth reaching for another system - if only one based on hard-line rule. Authoritarian attitudes are not limited to Alternative voters, they can also be seen in the Wagenknecht electorate.
Why isn't the German left reaching out to working-class voters worried about their livelihoods? When the leftist-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Movement was formed, there were hopes that perhaps it would take voters away from the AfD or halt its growth - that doesn't seem to have happened .
Wagenknecht herself had a diagnosis that the left-wing parties erroneously focused on identity politics, issues related to language, gender equality, minorities - which is incomprehensible to the average worker. The Left, Wagenknecht argued, had set its sights on the "weird minorities of Berlin," globalism and neoliberalism, and the ordinary worker no longer had anything to look for in its offerings. This may be true, while it is interesting to note that the AfD says very little about its economic program.
What is it actually like?
As I said: it's a very neoliberal party. Its prescription for the problems of the German economy boils down to deregulation and reducing the role of the state as much as possible. Then everything will regulate itself and be fine.
I think AfD voters don't realize what implementing the party's economic program would mean for them in practice. Analyses show that it would mainly benefit the richest Germans - AfD voters are acting against their own interests.
They are inclined to do so by the migration situation, slogans such as that migrants coming to Germany get much more than "native Germans" on a good day.
AfD has the support of some part of German big business .
No, it is still a taboo subject for big business. I don't know of any big German company that would financially support the AfD. It could still mean an image crisis and loss of customers.
Recently we had a rather absurd situation. Well, the AfD account received an exceptionally large donation - almost one million euros. Similar sums must be disclosed on the Bundestag website. The donor, the owner of a certain company, was unhappy that the information had reached the public and wanted to withdraw the donation. It turned out that he didn't want to support the AfD at all, but instead made a donation of 2 million euros for medical treatment to a sick friend, and the friend paid half to the party and still named his donor's company as the donor.
The AfD is often spoken of as the most radical of the radical-right parties in Europe - even Marine Le Pen did not want to work with them in the European Parliament. Would you agree with this opinion?".
I don't know if there is any point at all in doing a compilation of the biggest radicals. The Alternative was kicked out of the Le Pen faction mainly because of its historical revisionism. Many AfD politicians touch on controversial topics related to World War II, contesting the German policy of remembrance based on the assumption of German guilt, or even attempting to portray Germans as victims of World War II. This is a problem for a party like Le Pen's National Unity, for all the tactics of professionalization and shifting to the mainstream that far-right parties across Europe are adopting today.
For the AfD, is a Berlin-born descendant of Turkish migrants a German? Does it embrace a racial-ethnic conception of the German nation?.
In my opinion, the party's attitude goes in this direction. Of course, you won't find such radical slogans in the program, nor does the party's head, Alice Weidel, raise them. Officially, the AfD proclaims that anyone who works and integrates can stay in Germany.
But the statements of other prominent people associated with the formation show an aversion to foreigners and a desire to rid Germany of some people of other origins. Especially those professing Islam, because for a large part of the AfD it is incompatible with German culture.
To what extent should we in Poland worry about the rise of the AfD?.
What should worry us most is precisely this historical revisionism. At the same time, the party is trying to build a positive image for itself in Poland. Mainly MEP Tomasz Froelich, who works closely with the Confederation, has been thrown into this episode. He addresses Poles on his social media, appears more and more often in traditional media, and argues that negative opinions about the AfD are the result of left-wing activists and people who want to destroy the party. Many people in Poland believe him.
Of all the parties running in the upcoming elections, only the AfD mentions Poland in its program - but only in the context of "unacceptable demands for war reparations."
One more thing is worth keeping in mind. Sahra Wagenknecht described the AfD as a party for "Ellenbogengesellschaft" - which can be translated as "a society where it pushes its elbows apart," dominated by extreme selfishness in every dimension, including international politics. People who think that the AfD is not the worst option for Poland, and who hope that the party will "get migration right," should consider whether it is in Poland's interest for Germany to be ruled by a party that elevates extreme selfishness to the rank of the highest virtue, and whether Poland - as a country weaker than Germany in every way - will not lose out.
The AfD once had a proposal that seasonal workers - from Poland, among others - should not be covered by German minimum wage laws. It advocates closing the borders. These are not favorable proposals for us.
AfD would like Germany to leave the European Union .
It would certainly like a return to the national currency, but ultimately it would also like to leave the Union. The Alternative started out as a party opposed to the euro as a common currency. Then the theme was superseded by migration. However, the anti-European theme has returned, and with increased force.
Last year, the demand to leave the European Union was discussed in the context of the European elections. Such a proposal even appeared in the first version of the party's program, but due to internal disputes it was withdrawn - it was explained that its appearance was a "misprint" - Germans joked that the AfD wanted to abolish the European Union by mistake.
Certainly, the entire formation believes that there should be as little Europe as possible, that integration should be limited to loose cooperation between nation-states. It constantly stresses that Germany subsidizes the EU, while countries like Poland benefit.
With skepticism toward the Union is combined with a positive attitude toward Russia?.
The AfD is pro-Russian in many areas. The party's program explicitly includes the restoration of energy cooperation with Russia. AfD argues that Germany has always fared best when it worked closely with Moscow, and - unlike in Poland - this message resonates in Germany. Alternative politicians also travel as observers to elections in Russia and Belarus.
The party, documents show, is supported by Russia. We had, for example, the action Sobovet, the traces of which lead right there. It included websites that looked like those of the mainstream media, except that they promoted a message favorable to the AfD.
Tusk's words, warning that slogans that sound ominous were uttered at an AfD rally in Halle, where Musk virtually appeared, were noticed in Germany?.
To a small extent. But that rally had an impact on how Chancellor Scholz and other center politicians spoke out in the context of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, emphasizing the need for history education and remembrance policies.
And do the words that came out of Halle - Musk calling on Germans not to focus on historical wrongdoing, Alice Weidel promising to "make Germany great again" - weaken or strengthen the disagreement of most Germans with any joint government with the AfD?.
These slogans are resonating, unfortunately. Younger generations do not want to be constantly blamed for the deeds of their ancestors. People who would agree with Musk here are not necessarily ready to vote for the AfD, but the fact that a major party openly speaks such language affects what the others can say in the public debate. There is no shortage of opinions that the AfD is preaching what other parties are quietly thinking. There is even a saying that the AfD is "the Christian Democrats after two beers."
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Patrycja Tepper - analyst in the "Germany-Europe-world" team at the Poznań-based Western Institute. She works on German domestic and foreign policy, with a particular focus on Russian influence in fringe parties.
