Germany "must reconcile the social with the national," a state politician said, using a phrase that to many resembled National Socialism. Now Merkel's CDU has had to reiterate it won't cooperate with the far-right AfD.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/ZB
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Members of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) have once again found themselves forced to declare that they will not work with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party after CDU lawmakers said their party needed to "reconcile the national with the social."
This comment, made to the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung by two CDU members of parliament in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, led to intense criticism from nearly all sides of the political spectrum in Germany. As many on social media and elsewhere were eager to point out, it closely resembles the term National Socialism — more commonly known in English as Nazism.
On Thursday, CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak took to Twitter to list four times his party said it would not work with the AfD: "One more time for everyone taking notes: the CDU strictly rejects any coalition or cooperation with the AfD!!!"
Ziemiak was the latest in a series of CDU officials to issue such a declaration against the populist party. One day earlier, Merkel's successor as leader of the CDU, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, said the "hate and incitement" of the AfD was partly to blame for the recent death of pro-immigration politician Walter Lübcke, possibly in a "far-right extremist attack."
Rethinking a blanket AfD cooperation ban
A fractured vote in 2016 has led to a three-party coalition in Saxony-Anhalt, where the CDU is the senior partner with the center-right Social Democrats (SPD) and Green party, even though the AfD came in second place in that vote.
Germany's major political parties — What you need to know
There are seven political parties in the German Bundestag and they rarely agree on anything. DW takes a look at their ideologies, leadership and history.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Schmidt
Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
The CDU has traditionally been the main center-right party across Germany, but it shifted toward the center under Chancellor Angela Merkel. The party remains more fiscally and socially conservative compared to parties on the left. It supports membership of the EU and NATO, budgetary discipline at home and abroad and generally likes the status quo. It is the largest party in the Bundestag.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Schmidt
Christian Social Union (CSU)
The CSU is the sister party of the CDU in Bavaria and the two act symbiotically at the national level (CDU/CSU). Despite their similarities, the CSU is generally more conservative than the CDU on social issues. The CSU leader and premier of Bavaria, Markus Söder, ordered crosses in every state building in 2018.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Schuldt
Social Democrats (SPD)
The SPD is Germany's oldest political party and the main center-left rival of the CDU/CSU. It shares the CDU/CSU support for the EU and NATO, but it takes a more progressive stance on social issues and welfare policies. It is currently in a coalition government with the CDU/CSU and is trying to win back support under interim leaders Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, Manuela Schwesig and Malu Dreyer.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/W. Kumm
Alternative for Germany (AfD)
The new kid on the block is the largest opposition party in the Bundestag. The far-right party was founded in 2013 and entered the Bundestag for the first time in 2017 under the stewardship of Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland. It is largely united by opposition to Merkel's immigration policy, euroscepticism, and belief in the alleged dangers posed by Germany's Muslim population.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/U. Deck
Free Democrats (FDP)
The FDP has traditionally been the kingmaker of German politics. Although it has never received more than 15 percent of the vote, it has formed multiple coalition governments with both the CDU/CSU and SPD. The FDP, today led by Christian Lindner, supports less government spending and lower taxes, but takes a progressive stance on social issues such as gay marriage or religion.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/W. Kumm
The Greens
The Greens, led today by Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, emerged from the environmental movement in the 1980s. Unsuprisingly, it supports efforts to fight climate change and protect the environment. It is also progressive on social issues. But strong divisions have occasionally emerged on other topics. The party famously split in the late 1990s over whether to use military force in Kosovo.
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The Left
The Left, led by Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, is the most left-wing party in the Bundestag. It supports major redistribution of wealth at home and a pacifist stance abroad, including withdrawing Germany from NATO. It emerged from the successor party to the Socialist Unity Party (SED) that ruled communist East Germany until 1989. Today, it still enjoys most of its support in eastern Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Gambarini
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With this in mind, CDU co-chairs in the state parliament in Magdeburg, Ulrich Thomas and Lars-Jörn Zimmer, wrote what they called a memorandum, which was seen by the daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, urging their conservative party colleagues to reconsider its blanket ban on working with the populist AfD.
Thomas added that while the CDU could not currently form a government with the AfD, his party "should not completely discount a coalition…we have to see which way the wind blows," in the future. He said the AfD had both radical and liberal wings it was worth watching to see which side came out on top.
Thomas and Zimmer wrote that AfD voters and CDU voters had some common goals.
The statements prompted outrage from the CDU's coalition partners, the SPD and the Green party, who demanded the Saxony-Anhalt CDU make an unequivocal declaration that it would not work with the AfD.
Shortly thereafter, the state leaders of the CDU issued a statement saying that "there will be…no institutional or strategical" cooperation with the nationalists.
Since the AfD morphed from an anti-Eurozone group into an Islamophobic, nationalist party in 2015, the CDU has several times had to have the internal debate over whether to work with them as Merkel moving her party towards the center has led many CDU voters to flock to the more conservative AfD.
