The rise of the far right in Germany. Cartoon from 7 September 2026 in CTXT
On 6 September, Germany’s far right secured its biggest electoral victory since the end of the Nazi era. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won 43.8 per cent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt – one of the poorest federal states in the east of the country, with a population of just two million – during the regional elections. Although the party fell just short of an absolute majority and will have to form a coalition with its opponents to govern, this result has further shaken up the political landscape.
The AfD’s election manifesto for Saxony-Anhalt, which is openly xenophobic, advocates ‘remigration’, restrictions on access to abortion, the rejection of environmentalism and a “patriotic cultural revolution” to reframe the memory of Nazism, whilst flirting with strategies to normalise or whitewash it.
They have promised to close borders, deport immigrants and restrict social welfare policies for foreigners. In this way, they are capitalising on the discontent felt by many over the state of the economy and exploiting the tendency to blame immigrants for all ills, just as all far-right populist groups – full of demagogues, racists and reactionaries – are doing.
The rise of the far right in Germany is not a recent phenomenon; a decade ago it was already performing well in the polls and, for the first time, beat Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, coming third in the regional elections on 4 September 2016 and finishing second in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Even then, the AfD were reviving Nazi terminology to make their position clear.
The AfD has been gaining political ground thanks to the support of figures such as Elon Musk, who spoke at one of its events in support of its candidate, Alice Weidel, where Musk called on Germans “not to feel guilty” about the Holocaust.
And meanwhile, here, some people are still trying to spark a debate about how utterly terrible and counterproductive it is to call a Nazi a Nazi, because if they don’t turn up with a swastika on their arm and go about exterminating people in gas chambers, they’re something else entirely – democratic and normal.
There are also people who claim that these people do not sympathise with Nazism because their leader, Alice Weidel, is a lesbian, is married to an immigrant, has adopted immigrant children and lives in Switzerland. Well, it’s as if they’re just ‘light’ and modern Nazi racists. Ernst Röhm must be laughing his head off in his grave.
Well, this woman has already promised to deport all Ukrainians and Syrians currently in Germany and to demand that the EU return to Germany the money the country has contributed.
Many cartoons have highlighted the Nazi overtones of the AfD, such as the one by the Dutch cartoonist Tjeerd Royaards, whose cartoon was taken down from LinkedIn for ‘breaching professional standards’.
A quick look at some of those cartoons.
TR: Come on! Not you! Can’t you see that the past is coming back? – Exactly – It was all right, really – What past?
TR: Headline: The far-right AfD wins a key state election in Germany. “And remember, the scam is complete when the humiliation of the enemy is perceived as prosperity.”
There are many more cartoons on this subject in this gallery from Cartooning for Peace and in this other one from Cartoon Movement
