A far-right party’s victory in a German state is reviving memories of the country’s dark past.
In the eastern state of Thuringia, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party received one-third of the vote. And it picked up 30 percent of the tally in Saxony, also in eastern Germany. It is the strongest showing by a German far-right party in a free election since 1932 when the Nazis won one-third of the national vote. Adolf Hitler then became chancellor—and soon absolute dictator.
This year, Germany celebrates 75 years of stable democratic rule. Is that stability now threatened? Perhaps, but hopefully not. Thuringia has a population of 2 million, and Saxony has 4 million people, among Germany’s 84 million total. Together, they make up 7 percent of Germany’s citizenry.
Eastern Germany, with 16 million people, is distinct from the rest of the country. Its democratic experience dates only from the fall of communism in 1989. It is less prosperous. And it is also much more secular. A survey in 2012 found that more than half of Germans in the east are atheists (compared to 10 percent in western Germany), making it one of the most unreligious places in the world. Most people in western Germany still retain nominal Christian affiliation.
Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the reunified Federal Republic of Germany, was a devout Catholic and Christian Democrat. He privately derided eastern Germany as never fully Christian since it was not Christianized until the 13th century by the Teutonic Knights. The Protestant Reformation began in 1517 with Martin Luther in eastern Germany. In the 2012 survey, 25 percent of eastern Germans identified as religious, and 21 percent identified as Protestant. In 2022, only 15 percent of eastern Germans were Protestant.
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Mark is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence. Prior to joining the IRD in 1994, Mark worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency. A lifelong United Methodist, he has been active in United Methodist renewal since 1988. He is the author of Taking Back The United Methodist Church, Methodism and Politics in the 20th Century, and The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War. He attends a United Methodist church in Alexandria, Va.