By Sebastian Rave, Sozialistische Alternative (ISA in Germany)
Across Germany, polls show the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to be the second biggest party, and in former East Germany it is the biggest in every region except for Berlin.
In June’s elections to the European Parliament, the ruling coalition of Social Democrats (14%), Greens (12%) and Liberals (5%) all lost votes. The main opposition Christian Democrats scored 30% but the real winners were the AfD with 16%.
The AfD speaks to groups who fear further cuts to their living standards and have had enough of mainstream parties. They aim to channel widespread dissatisfaction into hatred of immigrants and are ‘punching down’ in the face of acute social crisis and a wide-spread distrust against establishment parties. The AfD has been associated with a string of racist attacks and they have heavily infiltrated the police force. Recently it was revealed that AfD leaders had been discussing mass deportations of immigrants if they came to power – something with a highly sinister ring in Germany.
There is massive opposition to the AfD. Over 1.4 million took to the streets to protest against them in January with demonstrations in every town and city and there were at least 70,000 outside the AfD conference in Essen on 29/30 June.
The response of the Social Democrats and the trade unions has been to link arms with the bosses and their parties in defence of ‘democracy’. But the capitalist parties are responsible for the situation workers find themselves in. Building broad alliances sounds good but not if different parties are pulling in opposite directions, and especially not if none of them have a solution to the problems workers face.
The German trade unions called for local strikes against the far right in March. It was a step forward but a token as it only lasted 15 minutes. The potentially powerful German trade union movement needs to break away from ‘social partnership’ with the employers and their political representatives, and lead a campaign to restore living standards and rebuild public services, which could unite German and immigrant workers against the threat of the far right.
