Nationalists pile pressure on Merkel in East

AfD is polling strongly in former communist areas that have not prospered following reunification

IN THE small German town of Oranienburg, they are fighting over history.

At an election rally in the main square, banners read: “Wende 2.0. Peaceful revolution at the ballot box.”

The Wende – meaning turning point – is what Germans call the popular uprising 30 years ago that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Now, in the former communist east of the country, the nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is branding itself as the heir to that uprising.

“Let’s finish what we started in 1989,” Andreas Kalbitz, the party’s lead candidate in the regional elections, tells the rally. “Let’s finish the Wende.”

The answer from the town’s centreLeft mayor comes in the form of a giant poster, showing the square hung with swastikas in the Nazi era, above a slogan that reads: “Never again.”

The reference is not lost on the crowd. One of the AfD’s best-known politicians has called for a “180-degree turn” in Germany’s culture of atonement for Nazi crimes and the party leader has referred to them as a “speck of bird---- in 1,000 years of glorious German history”.

Germany faces regional elections in the former communist east today that look set to pile pressure on Angela Merkel’s already strained coalition.

The AfD is riding high in the polls and could come first in a regional election for the first time, inflicting heavy losses on Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and her main partners, the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD).

The AfD has suffered a bruising 12 months, but here it remains a force to be reckoned with. Its popularity in the east shows how divided Germany remains two months before the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

According to a recent poll, the AfD enjoys nearly twice as much support in the east as it does in the west.

“We want a Germany of identity and homeland,” Mr Kalbitz tells the crowd. “The German economy should be for the Germans.”

It is a message that resonates in a region that saw little immigration under communism and which still lags behind the more prosperous west.

Across the street, rival protesters wave rainbow umbrellas and posters that read: “No place for Nazis.”

The AfD will not be in a position to form a regional government after the elections, but it could force its rivals into an uncomfortable alliance to keep it out.

Two east German states go to the polls today. Mr Kalbitz is lead candidate in Brandenburg, a state ruled by the SPD since reunification, but where the AfD is now neck-and-neck with it.

The AfD is also polling well in Saxony, the most populous former communist state and a CDU stronghold. The two parties were neck-and-neck until days ago, when the AfD fell back to 25 per cent behind the CDU’s 29.

A bad result could end up as a big headache for Mrs Merkel, whose current coalition deal with the SPD only lasts until the end of the year.

With growing pressure in the SPD to pull out, the party is set to elect a new leader and a bad result could strengthen anti-coalition candidates. Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, the former communist east could still play a pivotal role in Germany’s political future.