First Elon Musk, now JD Vance. Key members of the incoming US government are throwing their support behind the German far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Musk, the world’s richest man, and Donald Trump-nominated US Vice President Vance have both made highly polarizing statements recently.
Vance has criticized American media that have described the AfD as “Nazi-lite” because, as he wrote on social media on January 2, “the AfD is most popular in the same areas of Germany that were most resistant to the Nazis.”
But is this really true?
claim: In a post on X (formerly Twitter), which has now been accessed more than 7.8 million times, Vance claimed that the American media were condemning the AfD.
DW Fact Check: False. In fact, poll results and other research indicate that the opposite is true.
It is true that including the American media the new York Times and even fox newsHas on occasion linked the AfD to the National Socialists of Germany or Nazism. This is partly related to the fact that some AfD politicians have used Nazi slogans themselves. In 2021, AfD member Björn Hoecke, who previously worked as a history teacher, was convicted of publicly using Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s slogan “Everything for Germany”, which is used today in Germany. Is banned.
National Party co-chair Alice Weidel has said that she sees May 8, the day Germany was liberated from the Nazis, as the anniversary of her country’s defeat rather than its liberation. Furthermore, some state chapters of the AfD as well as its youth organization have been certified as right-wing extremists by the German intelligence service.
Popular in former East Germany
Vance has said that the AfD is popular in areas that have offered the most resistance to the Nazis.
In fact, the AfD is most popular in the state formerly known as East Germany. In the last federal election in 2021, the AfD was victorious in gaining a second vote of locals in the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and parts of Saxony. The second vote is cast for a party, and determines how many seats each party gets in the German lower house, or Bundestag.
Overall, the AfD was particularly strong in the so-called “new” German states – that is, states that were previously part of East Germany – such as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia. Only in Berlin, one of the “new” states, did it receive fewer votes.
When one looks at the German results of the European elections in June 2024 it is a similar picture. Here too, the AfD was mostly successful in the eastern regions. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia, the AfD received at least 27% of the vote, making it the largest share in those states. Across Germany, the AfD received 15.9% of the vote.
In the latest regional elections held in the above states, the AfD was particularly strong. In Berlin, the Greens were the strongest party in the 2024 European elections (19.6%), while the AfD received 11.6% of the vote.
In the context of the upcoming 2025 federal election, the AfD is popular, but it is hard to know exactly where, because the polls document Germany as a whole and do not look at individual regions in detail.
Why is JD Vance wrong?
So where were the Nazis most popular? And where was he most opposed – was it in East Germany?
Adolf Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), came to power in 1933. In the last Reichstag election held on November 6, 1932, before he took power, the NSDAP emerged as the strongest with 33.1%. Vote.
If we look at the election results of German regions in 1932, the NSDAP received the largest share of the vote in almost all of Germany, including East Germany, areas where many people vote for the AfD today.
In the Reichstag elections in March 1933, the NSDAP was even stronger. However, this election has not been described by historians as free because the NSDAP and its supporters intimidated voters, sometimes violently.
Therefore Vance’s claim is wrong. Hitler’s NSDAP enjoyed support throughout Germany, including areas that today favor the AfD.
An as-yet-unpublished study by researchers at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, in which Some excerpts are already availablehas confirmed this finding. The study analyzes the relationship between districts in which many people vote for the AfD today and districts that strongly supported the NSDAP in 1933.
Study co-author Felix Hagemeister told DW that in 1933 the NSDAP had high voter support in districts where the AfD enjoys strong support today.
“It would be wrong to talk about any reason in this regard,” he said. According to Hagemeister, it is about passing on right-wing tendencies from generation to generation. “For example, research shows that children mostly adopt attitudes similar to those of their parents,” he said.
In East Germany, this disconnect between areas that strongly supported the NSDAP in the past and the AfD today is particularly evident. But it is also present in Rhineland-Palatinate, a state in the west of Germany.
However, it is important to exercise caution and not compare today’s voters with those who lived nearly a century ago, wrote Christian Boos. Federal Agency for Civic Education (BPB),
He pointed out that a 2024 analysis showed that the AfD’s popularity is also partly determined by socio-economic differences – that is, how people live in certain areas, and how this gives rise to cultural and ideological differences.
This article was originally written in German.
While you’re here: Every Tuesday, DW editors provide insight into what’s happening in German politics and society. You can sign up for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing here.
