Germany’s AfD Outgrows the 'Firewall': What the Saxony-Anhalt Shock Means for Merz

They can exclude the AfD from government. They cannot exclude its voters from elections, or prevent the party from changing the terms of political debate.

That distinction is becoming increasingly important.

The firewall meets electoral reality

Saxony-Anhalt was a particularly stark demonstration of the problem. The AfD won 39 of the regional parliament’s 83 seats, coming within three of an absolute majority. Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, by contrast, took roughly 17%.

For the first time since 1945, a far-right party in Germany has moved this close to having the numbers to govern a state on its own.

AfD state leader Ulrich Siegmund initially spoke of governing alone before signalling openness to coalition talks. Yet the arithmetic has not altered the central political rule: Germany’s mainstream parties continue to reject cooperation with the AfD. The party has never entered a governing coalition at state or federal level in post-war Germany.

That leaves Magdeburg with a problem that is political rather than procedural. A party can become the largest force in parliament without acquiring a route into government if every other party rules out working with it.

The mechanism can still function. But the closer the AfD gets to a majority, the more strain it places on the system.

A firewall is relatively easy to defend when the excluded party is marginal. It becomes harder when nearly half of voters support it.

The immediate consequence is greater pressure on the parties outside the AfD to construct administrations from smaller and increasingly fragmented parliamentary groups. That can produce governments, but not necessarily governments with the same political authority or policy coherence as those formed under a simpler party system.

For Merz, the Saxony-Anhalt result is also a warning about the federal level. The CDU can maintain its formal distance from the AfD while finding that the issues driving AfD voters — migration, security and foreign policy — increasingly shape its own agenda.

A party ban is not a political shortcut

The scale of Saturday’s demonstrations has brought another option into public view: using Germany’s constitutional machinery to seek an AfD ban.

The protesters called on federal and state institutions to initiate proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court under Article 21(2) of the Basic Law. But the demand for a ban should not be confused with a simple political decision to remove a party from the ballot.

Only the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe can prohibit a political party. Proceedings can be initiated by the Federal Government, the Bundestag or the Bundesrat. The legal threshold is deliberately high.

Authorities would have to establish more than extremist ideology. They would need to demonstrate active and aggressive efforts aimed at eliminating the free democratic basic order or threatening the existence of the Federal Republic.

German history makes clear how exceptional such a measure is. The court has banned only two parties: the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party in 1952 and the Communist Party of Germany in 1956. In 2017, it rejected a prohibition of the far-right NPD because, although the party pursued unconstitutional objectives, it lacked the operational capacity to achieve them.

That precedent matters for the AfD because electoral strength cuts in both directions. A party that commands substantial public support cannot simply be treated as an insignificant extremist organisation. Yet its political weight could also make any successful constitutional prohibition far more consequential.

The street demonstrations therefore expose an unusual tension in German democracy. Civil society is demanding stronger constitutional protection precisely as the party it opposes demonstrates extraordinary electoral strength.

A ban, if pursued, would have to survive the same constitutional standards that the protesters are demanding the state uphold.

The AfD is already moving the political centre

The more immediate effect of the AfD's rise is likely to be visible not in Karlsruhe but in the policies of its competitors.

The party's electoral success is forcing mainstream politicians to respond to voters who have moved sharply towards the right, particularly over migration and security. That does not require formal cooperation with the AfD. It can happen through changes in the policies and rhetoric of parties that remain committed to the Brandmauer.

This is where the firewall has a less visible weakness.

It can prevent the AfD from holding ministerial office. It cannot prevent other parties from adapting to the political environment created by the AfD.

The result is a paradox. Mainstream parties can preserve the institutional boundary while the substantive political boundary moves.

The effect is especially pronounced in eastern Germany, where the AfD has repeatedly performed more strongly than in western states. The divide is not simply electoral. It reflects persistent economic, social and political differences that have survived reunification.

Saturday’s protests offered the other side of that divide in unusually visible form. Major cities including Berlin, Hamburg and Munich produced large demonstrations against the AfD, while the party was simultaneously demonstrating its electoral strength in the east.

Germany therefore faces two competing expressions of democratic legitimacy: voters using elections to propel the AfD towards power, and citizens using the streets to demand that constitutional institutions prevent that power from being exercised.

Neither can simply be dismissed.

Security makes the political conflict harder

The timing of the electoral breakthrough also matters because Germany is confronting a growing security problem that is capable of exploiting precisely the divisions now visible in its politics.

In August, German intelligence and interior authorities said an explosive-laden drone found near Antonov transport aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport displayed signatures of Russian technology. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt attributed the operation to Russian state entities.

Days before the Saxony-Anhalt election, sabotage attempts targeted electrical substations in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia. By September 8, authorities had arrested a 48-year-old suspect while investigating both possible state-sponsored activity and domestic eco-extremism.

The broader figures are striking. German law enforcement recorded 165 suspected sabotage incidents, 24 espionage investigations and 747 unauthorised drone flights during the first eight months of 2026.

Information operations add another layer. Intelligence agencies identified a GRU-linked network known as Storm-1516 conducting operations intended to undermine confidence in postal voting before the Saxony-Anhalt election. Fact-checkers found no systemic voting irregularities on election day.

The significance is not that the AfD has been shown to be directing these operations. It has not. Federal investigators have established no direct operational link between the AfD apparatus and physical sabotage or intelligence operations on German soil.

The strategic problem is different.

Foreign interference does not need to control a political party to benefit from political fragmentation. Disinformation becomes more useful when public confidence is already under pressure, while infrastructure sabotage becomes more politically potent when voters are divided over the direction of the state.

Merz has accused the AfD of systematically aligning with Russian strategic interests, citing party figures’ visits to Moscow and pro-Kremlin statements. But the absence of an established operational connection between the party and the sabotage cases makes the distinction between political affinity and state-directed activity essential.

Germany cannot afford to blur it.

The European consequences are larger than Saxony-Anhalt

The AfD's rise is not confined to German domestic politics. The party's growing influence comes with opposition to aspects of European integration, migration policy and European defence strategy.

That makes the erosion of Germany's political centre relevant well beyond the country's borders. Germany remains central to the European political and security architecture, and a more fragmented domestic system could make consensus on European policies harder to sustain.

The issue is particularly sensitive for European support for Ukraine. The AfD's political rise amplifies narratives opposed to sanctions against Russia and military assistance to Kyiv. As the party expands its electoral leverage, those positions become harder for mainstream parties to ignore even when they remain unwilling to cooperate with the AfD.

French cabinet ministers have described the Saxony-Anhalt result as an alarming signal for European stability, while Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has condemned European political figures who welcome the AfD's ascent.

The next test is already approaching. Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern vote on September 20, with the AfD polling at about 18% and 37% respectively.

Another strong result would not necessarily break the Brandmauer. It could make the wall more politically expensive to maintain.

And that may be the more consequential transformation underway in Germany: not the sudden arrival of the far right in government, but the growing difficulty of governing around a party that can command a near-majority of voters while remaining outside the governing system.