How Democracy Can Fail: Lessons From Germany

“History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes” – Mark Twain

Significantly, the forthcoming chancellor put 'Old Donald's" America on a par with Russia - widely viewed here as a security threat to Europe more broadly. "We are under such massive pressure from two sides that my absolute priority now really is to create unity in Europe," Merz said.

And with the US and Russia now pow-wowing bilaterally, about, but not with, Ukraine, it feels like a global return to big-power politics.

A day after Mr. Vance stunned the Munich Security Conference by telling German leaders to drop their so-called firewall and allow the hard-right AfD, to enter their federal government, Mr. Scholz accused Mr. Vance of effectively violating a commitment to never again allow Germany to be led by fascists who could repeat the horrors of the Holocaust.

Dark Past Returns: The Far Right in Germany

Mr. Scholz said the AfD had trivialized Nazi atrocities like the concentration camp at Dachau, which Mr. Vance visited on Friday. The chancellor said Germany “would not accept” directives from outsiders about how to run its democracy — and certainly not to work with such a party.

“That is not done, certainly not among friends and allies,” Mr. Scholz said. “Where our democracy goes from here is for us to decide.”

Mr. Scholz was joined in his criticism later Saturday by Friedrich Merz, his rival as the chancellor candidate for the conservative Christian Democrats, whom polls suggest is the favorite to be Germany’s next leader.

Friedrich Merz is a familiar face of his conservative party's old guard. Politically, he has never come across as exhilarating.

And yet his explosive bid to tighten migration rules with the support of far-right votes in parliament reveals a man willing to gamble by breaking a major taboo.

It also marks yet another clear break from his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party's more centrist stance under his former party rival Angela Merkel.

Although Merz ultimately failed to change the law, he had launched a lightning bolt into an election campaign triggered by the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government late last year.

Why Germany is rebuilding its military after Russia invaded Ukraine

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz, who is tipped to be Germany's next chancellor, had tried to rely on support from the AfD which is a far-right for the second time in a week - but the bill was defeated by 350 votes to 338.

The strategy was widely condemned, including by Merz's predecessor as CDU leader and former chancellor Angela Merkel, who accused him of turning his back on a previous pledge not to work with AfD in the Bundestag.

Michel Friedman, a prominent German-French publicist and former deputy chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, described Musk’s actions – at an event after 'Old Donald'’s swearing in as US president – as a disgrace and said Musk had shown that a “dangerous point for the entire free world” had been reached.

Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said he considered Musk’s support for the extreme right unacceptable as he was asked how he thought Europe should respond to the tech billionaire, particularly in the light of his AfD endorsement.

Musk's straight-arm gesture embraced by right-wing extremists regardless of what he meant

IT IS A bitingly cold evening in Bautzen, a handsome town nestled in the hills of the Oberlausitz, deep in the east German state of Saxony. But spirits are high at the election stand of the hard-right Alternative for Germany (afd). “Our land first, because we love Germany!” proclaim banners in the party’s trademark bright blue. “The mood inside the party is really good,” beams Frank Peschel, who sits in Saxony’s parliament. The afd took 39% of the vote here at last year’s European election, and your correspondent struggles to find any local not planning to vote for it at the national election on February 23rd. “The left calls us Nazis, but we just want a normal life,” says Simon, a 20-year-old. He will deliver his first vote to the party next month.

The AfD has risen to the second position in German national polls, backed by about a fifth of the electorate. It has gained support with an unwavering anti-establishment campaign, which rails against the millions of migrants and refugees who have entered the country over the last decade from the Middle East and Ukraine.

Parties with similar immigration messages elsewhere in Europe, like the Brothers of Italy and Austria's Freedom Party, have risen to federal power. But in Germany, still haunted by its Nazi past, no other party will work with the AfD. Its candidates complain they receive far less airtime than other candidates on the nation's political talk shows.

While the German economy navigates troubled waters, the lives of the rich continue on unaffected. This film takes a look into the largely closed-off world of the country's millionaires and billionaires - and at how the wealthy see themselves and their privileged lifestyles.