Can a ban stop the rise of Germany’s far right?

BERLIN — As the far-right Alternative for Germany continues to rise — and its radicalism becomes increasingly pronounced — a growing chorus of mainstream politicians is asking whether the best way to stop the party is to try to ban it.

The debate kicked off in earnest after Saskia Esken, the co-chief of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), came out earlier this month in favor of discussing a ban — if only, as she put it, to “shake voters” out of their complacency.

Since then, politicians from across the political spectrum have weighed in on whether a legal effort to ban Alternative for Germany (AfD), while possible under German law, would be tactically smart — or only further fuel the party’s rise.

Like so much of German politics, the conversation is colored by the country’s Nazi past. In a society mindful that Adolf Hitler initially gained strength at the ballot box, with the Nazis winning a plurality of votes in federal elections before seizing power, a growing number of political leaders, particularly on the left, view a prohibition of the AfD — a party they view as a dire threat to Germany’s democracy — as an imperative rooted in historical experience.

Others fear the attempt would backfire by allowing the AfD to depict their mainstream opponents as undermining the democratic will of the German people, desperate to ban a party they can’t beat.

Indeed, the AfD appears to be trying to turn the debate to its tactical advantage.

“Calls for the AfD to be banned are completely absurd and expose the anti-democratic attitude of those making these demands,” said Alice Weidel, co-leader of the party, in a written statement to POLITICO. “The repeated calls for a ban show that the other parties have long since run out of substantive arguments against our political proposals.”

The debate is assuming greater urgency in a key year in which the AfD appears set to do better than ever in June’s European Parliament election as well as in three state elections in eastern Germany in September. The party is currently in second place with 23 percent support in national polls; across all the states of the former East Germany, not including Berlin, the AfD is currently leading in polls.

Calls for a party ban grew louder this week following revelations that AfD members attended a secretive meeting of right-wing extremists where a “master plan” for deporting millions of people, including migrants and “unassimilated citizens,” was discussed. The news sent shockwaves across the country, with many drawing parallels to similar plans made by the Nazis. One of the people reportedly in attendance was Roland Hartwig, a former parliamentarian and now a close personal aide to Weidel, the party’s co-leader.

In a post on X, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suggested it was a matter for the German judiciary.

“Learning from history is not just lip service,” he said. “Democrats must stand together.”

Many of the AfD’s most extreme leaders operate in eastern Germany, where the party is also the most popular. In two of the three states where the AfD will be competing in state elections next year — Thuringia and Saxony — state-level intelligence authorities have labeled local party branches as “secured extremist” — a designation that strengthens legal arguments for a ban.

Saskia Esken of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) called for a ban on the AfD party to ‘shake’ up complacent voters | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images

Germany’s constitution allows for bans of parties that “seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order” — essentially allowing the state to use anti-democratic means to prevent an authoritarian party from corroding democracy from within.

In reality, the legal hurdle for imposing a ban is very high. Germany’s constitutional court has only done it twice: The Socialist Reich Party, an heir to the Nazi party, was banned in 1952, while the Communist Party of Germany was prohibited in 1956.

More recently, in 2017, the court ruled that a neo-Nazi party known as the National Democratic Party (NPD), while meeting the ideological criteria for a prohibition, was too fringe to ban, as it lacked popular support and therefore the power to endanger German democracy.

Given the AfD’s poll numbers, however, an effort to ban it would pose an entirely different dilemma: How would politicians handle the backlash from the party’s many supporters?

Germany’s postwar democracy has arguably never faced a greater test, and politicians — as well as the public — remain divided over how to respond.

Center-right conservatives, who are leading in national polls, tend to view a ban attempt unfavorably.

“Such sham debates are grist to the AfD’s mill,” Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, told the Münchner Merkur newspaper. In response to Esken, the SPD leader who favors exploring a ban, Merz added: “Does the SPD chairwoman seriously believe that you can simply ban a party that reaches 30 percent in the polls? That’s a frightening suppression of reality.”

For the SPD, the stakes in terms of their political survival are much higher. The party has experienced a sharp decline in its popularity, and in two states in Germany’s east it is dangerously close to falling below the 5 percent hurdle needed to win seats in state parliaments.

Even within the SPD —  a party whose history of resistance to the Nazis is a source of great internal pride —  there is sharp disagreement over whether a ban is a good idea.

“If we ban a party that we don’t like, but which is still leading in the polls, it will lead to even greater solidarity with it,” Carsten Schneider, a social democrat who serves as federal commissioner for eastern Germany, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “And even from people who are not AfD sympathizers or voters, the collateral damage would be very high.”

Peter Wilke contributed reporting