Germany’s ‘Firewall’ Against the Far Right Is Being Tested as Never Before

A blowout win by the far-right Alternative for Germany party in a state election has revealed a split among voters about whether to uphold a decades-old strategy for sidelining extremists. For nearly eight decades in postwar Germany, the mainstream political establishment has refused to work with parties it deems extreme. This agreement among centrist leaders is known as a “firewall.” The people behind it say they are trying to prevent potential authoritarians from gaining power as Hitler did. That argument now faces its biggest test in the wake of Sunday’s election in Saxony-Anhalt, a small state of 2.1 million people in the east that broke decisively for the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. The result was an example of a fundamental disagreement among Germans about what constitutes a risk to democracy.

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