Editorial — The Resurgence of Fascism & The Rise of the AfD Party
In the past few years, the world has seen a stark increase in far-right extremism and nationalism. Emblematic of this change is the AfD party in Germany, which recently saw huge gains in the 2025 federal election. This concerning trend illustrates a deeper resurgence of fascist ideas globally.
A History Lesson
Let's begin with the history. After the Allied win in 1945, Germany was forced to face the realities of the atrocities that had been committed under the now toppled Nazi regime, many of which were perpetrated by ordinary citizens. Most infamously, this was illustrated by the case of Adolf Eichmann, an officer of the SS. As Hannah Arendt wrote in her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, the case of Eichmann was equally alarming and revealing. The defense argued that an inordinate man, who struggled to fit into society, just followed his desk job to the letter. While Arendt challenges argues that Eichmann should have fought against his work, which arranged the systematic detention and execution of Jews, she didn't see Eichmann as inherently evil. In fact, she argues that Eichmann represents the concept of the banality of evil[1], where someone, through obedience and lack of challenging the status quo, can perpetuate evil, not motived by its mission, but just through being a cog in it's system.
The case of Eichmann illustrates the struggle of Germany atoning for their past. Millions of Germans had participated in the war effort, yet to what degree were they morally culpable for the atrocities committed under the Nazi regime? How should the people of Germany remember the Holocaust and prevent it from happening again? Well, at first many didn’t. After the war ended, there was a movement to rid Germany of any trace of its guilt, by bulldozing concentration camps[2] and spreading lies about post-war “propaganda”, even denying the Holocaust ever happened.[3] However, after German reunification in the 1990s, popularity of Vergangenheitsbewältigung[4], which sought to teach about the history, cope with Germany’s past, and prevent future genocides, surged. Sentiment against fascism (antifascism) only increased and laws, such as Section 130, have criminalized antisemitic hate speech.
Alternative for Germany
Unfortunately, despite this push, Nazis never disappeared. Most apparent of this shift is the popularity of the Alternative for Germany party in Germany, which many have criticized as antisemitic and a breeding ground for neo-Nazis.[5] They've had numerous controversies, including statements from one of the founders, Björn Höcke, who, in a speech in 2017 while referencing a Holocaust memorial, stated a “need to make a 180 degree change in their politics of commemoration”.[6] Höcke has also been fined[7] for his use of the phrase “Alles für Deutschland” (Everything for Germany) the slogan of the Sturmabteilung, the paramilitary group which was critical in Hitler's rise to power.[8] (In response, AfD members have popularized the phrase “Alice für Deutschland”, as a refrence to the co-chairwoman of the AfD, Alice Weidel, to evade the ban.) Multiple AfD parliamentary members have been linked to neo-Nazi groups[9] and some, such as Wilhelm von Gottberg, have quoted or used the language of neofascists.[10]
The AfD deny being antisemitic or neo-Nazi[11] and attempt to give themselves a veil of pleasable deniability, which they use to refute those who call them out. The AfD have also tried to distance themselves from Nazis through historical revisionism.[12] Recently, Alice Weidel, the co-chairwoman of the AfD, appeared on a live broadcast on X (formerly Twitter) with Elon Musk. During the discussion, Weidel claimed that Hitler was a communist and socialist.[13] However, in reality, as he wrote in Mein Kampf, Hitler strongly opposed communism, labeling it a threat to German nationalism and a Jewish conspiracy.[14]
In the February 2025 German federal elections, the AfD received 20% of the vote, giving them an additional 69 seats, the largest rise of any party this cycle.[15] The 10 percentage point increase shocked many. However, the rise in far right extremism has been slowly festering for years.
Notably, maps of the election point towards a lasting remnant of the Iron Curtain. During its time as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the Soviet Union extracted natural resources from East Germany and collected reparations.[16] Meanwhile in the West, reparations were suspended and under the Marshall Plan, the United States poured capital, stimulating the economy and modernized West German industry.[17] After reunification, the gap between the two nations became evident. Today, despite attempts to rebuild the East stronger, the lasting impact is clear. Germans in the former GDR have worse economic, education, and job outcomes.[18] While there are no more physical barriers, the division between the West and East persists, on an economic, politcal, and even cultural level.[19]
Rise of Extremism
The rise in right-wing extremism is not random nor a fluke; rather, it's a reaction to economic struggle. Conservative parties respond to recent inflation[20], stagnated wages[21], and the housing crisis[22] by pointing the finger towards immigration, arguing for often Draconian enforcement policies. They promote strong nationalism and invoke negative images of foreign culture and its influence. Struggling citizens look towards any hope of change, jumping on board more and more extreme movements, encouraging both sides of the aisle to shift away from moderation. Far-right movements do the same as their conservative counterparts, but instead throw off the blanket, revealing the roots of racial supremacy and fascism.
As long as people look to find a scapegoat for their struggle, whether that be DEI or some other form of “woke-ness”, they’ll be distracted from real economic populism, turning a blind eye to falling union membership[23], increasing wage theft[24], and exponentially rising executive pay.[25]
Heath Long
[1] - "Arendt's book introduced the expression and concept of the banality of evil. Her thesis is that Eichmann was actually not a fanatic or a sociopath, but instead an average and mundane person who relied on clichéd defenses rather than thinking for himself, was motivated by professional promotion rather than ideology, and believed in success which he considered the chief standard of "good society". Banality, in this sense, does not mean that Eichmann's actions were in any way ordinary, but that his actions were motivated by a sort of complacency which was wholly unexceptional."
[2] - "The wall, barbed wire fencing, and barriers were removed, and most of the 32 barracks were converted into apartment buildings with 24 one- and two-room dwellings each. One barrack was converted into a school and dry goods store, another into four workshops, two others into dormitories for single men and women,yet another into an office and communal kitchen, and one quarter of another into a public bathing facility. The former delousing facility for clothing at the north end of the camp was converted into a restaurant with a meeting hall for up to 600 persons, and several of the apartment barracks also contained small stores (Rost, 1956). In one barrack space was even allotted for a planned municipal administration."
[3] - "Historians have documented evidence that as Germany's defeat became imminent and Nazi leaders realized they would most likely be captured and brought to trial, great effort was made to destroy all evidence of mass extermination."
[4] - "Vergangenheitsbewältigung, "struggle of overcoming the past" or "work of coping with the past") is a German compound noun describing processes that since the later 20th century have become key in the study of post-1945 German literature, society, and culture."
[5] - "Time and again, the AfD and its youth wing have claimed that they want nothing to do with neo-Nazism and right-wing extremism. Both are taking legal action to try to prevent the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence agency responsible for monitoring extremism in Germany, from classifying them as "confirmed right-wing extremist" organizations. However, reporting and research by reporters at DER SPIEGEL has now revealed that the AfD is closer to groups of a right-wing extremist or outright neo-Nazi nature than previously known. This once again reveals how far the AfD and JA have moved into right-wing extremist territory."
[6] - [Translated by DeepL] "In his speech at a “Junge Alternative” event in Dresden, Höcke criticized the fact that the Germans' state of mind was still that of “a totally defeated people”. “We Germans are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital.” He described the speech by the then Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker in 1985 on the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War as a “speech against his own people”. This “stupid coping policy” was paralyzing Germany's development. Therefore, a “180-degree turnaround in remembrance policy is needed”, said Höcke."
[7] - "Höcke, a former history teacher, closed his remarks at the time with the rallying cry “everything for Germany”. The presiding judge found on Tuesday that he knew of its Nazi connotations when he said it and fined him €13,000. Prosecutors had demanded a six-month suspended sentence while defence attorneys called for acquittal."
[8] - [Translated by DeepL] "“Alles für Deutschland” is a slogan that was used by the Sturmabteilung (SA), the NSDAP's paramilitary fighting organization, during the National Socialist era. Today, it is a criminal offence under German law to disseminate the slogan or to use it in public or at a meeting, as it is considered a symbol of unconstitutional organizations."
[9] - "The event was definitely not a “secret meeting,” Roger Beckamp, a member of the German Bundestag for the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) repeatedly stressed at the clandestine event in a restaurant in the small Swiss town of Kloten on December 14, attended by members of two well-known neo-Nazi groups. They had nothing to hide, Beckamp claimed, adding that he hoped “the whole thing will be put on the internet.”"
[10] - "In 2001, 12 years before the founding of the AfD, former AfD Bundestag member Wilhelm von Gottberg expressed his views on the remembrance of the Holocaust by quoting Italian neofascist Mario Consoli in saying “Any pretext, no matter how flimsy [...], is good enough to remind people of the Holocaust. The propaganda steamroller is getting stronger rather than weaker over the years, and in more and more countries the Jewish 'truth' about the Holocaust is being given legal protection. The Holocaust must remain a myth, a dogma that is beyond the reach of any free historical research.”"
[11] - "Publicly, the AfD tries to maintain a dividing line between itself and such organizations or parties. When the NPD campaigned in recent years for people to vote for the AfD so that it could get its issues into parliament, AfD leaders distanced themselves from it. The party tries to keep out the even more extreme forces with what it calls its "incompatibility list." Anyone who becomes a member of the AfD and does not declare their membership in any of the groups included on that incompatibility list can potentially be expelled from the party."
[12] - "At the same time, a new kind of colonial revisionism is developing in the wake of these discussions, one that is in part linked to international right-wing discourse and that is being particularly cultivated by Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)."
[13] - "“The biggest success after that terrible era in our history was to label Adolf Hitler as right[-wing] and conservative, he was exactly the opposite,” Weidel said. “He wasn't a conservative, he wasn't a libertarian, he was a communist, socialist guy, and we are the opposite.” “Right,” Musk responded."
[14] - "Later the Jews invented the mass-seduction of liberal democracy; in the last stage Marxism was their tool. By preaching the principle of human equality, Judaism has attempted to extirpate the feeling of pride from the soul of the Aryan race, to rob them of their leadership."
[15] - "All other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with the AfD, which is the second most popular party according to opinion polls. The strength of the party is another factor set to complicate coalition building and securing a parliamentary majority."
[16] - "While large sums had been poured into West Germany, especially by the United States, the Soviet Union not only put nothing into the economy of its zone but actually took out large amounts in reparations and occupation costs. Direct and indirect reparations paid by East Germany between 1946 and 1953 amounted to $14 billion in 1938 prices."
[17] - "The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred $13.3 billion (equivalent to $173.8 billion in 2024) in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II in Europe. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity and prevent the spread of communism."
[18] - "The economy of eastern Germany has struggled since unification, and large subsidies are still transferred from west to east. Economically, eastern Germany has had a sharp rise of 10 percent to West Germany's 5 percent. Western Germany also still holds 56 percent of the GDP. Part of this disparity between the East and the West lies in the Western labor unions' demand for high-wage pacts in an attempt to prevent "low-wage zones". This caused many Germans from the East to be outpriced in the market, adding to the slump in businesses in eastern Germany as well as the rising unemployment."
[19] - "“The German government under Kohl implemented a plan, essentially, that involved a pretty rapid de-industrialisation of the East,” he said. “The Eastern enterprises were sold off in a fire sale … it's hardly an exaggeration to say that East Germany was just sold off to Western businesses and Western property owners. And that was painful for many people in East Germany because their factories, their workplaces often went bankrupt – there were enormous Rust Belt areas that grew up in Saxony-Anhalt and so on.”"
[20] - "Despite the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the global inflation rate fell to 3.26 percent in the pandemic's first year, before rising to 4.66 percent in 2021. This increase came as the impact of supply chain delays began to take more of an effect on consumer prices, before the Russia-Ukraine war exacerbated this further. A series of compounding issues such as rising energy and food prices, fiscal instability in the wake of the pandemic, and consumer insecurity have created a new global recession, and global inflation in 2024 is estimated to have reached 5.76 percent. This is the highest annual increase in inflation since 1996."
[21] - "As of January 2024, the minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 an hour, and that hasn’t changed since 2009. A single person working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, before taxes, earns $15,080 annually at this rate. From Alabama to Wyoming, there is nowhere within the United States that one person can afford the total annual expenditures associated with the cost of living while making the minimum wage."
[22] - "These losses have contributed to a decades-long challenge for renters: rent increases are outpacing
income gains. Median rents have risen nearly continuously since 2001 in inflation-adjusted terms and are 21 percent higher as of 2022. Meanwhile, renters’ incomes have risen just 2 percent during the same period."
[23] - "U.S. union membership rates fell to fresh record lows in 2023 despite it being a year of headline-grabbing organized labor strikes from the Rustbelt to Hollywood and some continued organizing successes at companies such as Starbucks."
[24] - "Between 2017 and 2020, more than $3 billion in stolen wages was recovered on behalf of workers by the U.S. Department of Labor, state departments of labor and attorneys general, and through class and collective action litigation."
[25] - "Realized compensation of the top CEOs shot up 1,085% from 1978 to 2023 (adjusting for inflation), compared with the slow 24% growth in a typical worker’s annual compensation. CEO granted compensation rose 932% from 1978 to 2023."
