What happens when a party that seeks to erase the Holocaust gains unprecedented power? Germany is about to find out.
The AfD aims for a ‘180-degree turn’ in Holocaust memory
Election campaign posters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) show local candidate Arne Raue and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel near Brandenburg, Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Eighty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, a radical right-wing party now holds over 20% of the seats in Germany’s highest democratic institution, the Bundestag. This grants the AfD unprecedented power and resources to promote, normalize and legitimize its racist and antisemitic agenda.
The unprecedented success of the radical-right AfD has left many questioning whether we are witnessing Germany take a dangerous turn once again. In the Feb. 23 Bundestag election, the AfD achieved its best result to date, becoming the second strongest party in the Bundestag. The election campaign was largely dominated by key AfD topics such as migration policy and the deportation debate.
Instead of opposing the AfD’s racist and Islamaphobic agenda, other parties adopted its talking points. This failure of the established German parties has severe consequences not only for Jews but for German society as a whole.
The AfD does not merely represent anti-democratic and dehumanizing ideologies, but is also antisemitic, according to studies going back to 2016, and consistently reaffirmed over the years. The AfD’s ideological foundation is deeply rooted in völkisch or ethno-nationalism, which is, by definition, antisemitic. Historically, völkisch ideology has positioned Jews as its primary enemy, casting them as the supposed antithesis to a homogenous, imagined “people’s community, or Volksgemeinschaft. This ideological underpinning manifests in the party’s policies and rhetoric, which consistently undermine democratic values and promote exclusionary nationalism.
So it should come as no suprise that only two days after the election, two AfD members whom the party previously shunned for their radicalism —one described himself as “the kind face of NS,” meaning National Socialism — were confirmed to have been accepted back into the AfD faction. The AfD includes neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists among its ranks and has repeatedly failed to convincingly distance itself from antisemitic members. Moreover, its approach to historical memory is deeply revisionist, seeking to distort Holocaust memory through relativization and attacks on Germany’s culture of remembrance.
In a widely publicized X-Talk with Elon Musk, AfD leader Alice Weidel falsely claimed that Adolf Hitler was not a right-wing extremist but a communist. This deliberate distortion of history serves a clear political purpose: by falsely dissociating Nazism from far-right extremism, the AfD attempts to obscure its own ideological alignment with nationalist and authoritarian traditions. Weidel’s statement was not an accidental misrepresentation, but a calculated effort to rewrite history and legitimize the party’s own extreme-right ideology.
This is evident, for example, in the deliberate omission of Jewish and other victims of National Socialism by AfD members in Facebook posts, speeches, and YouTube videos. Instead of acknowledging the Holocaust, AfD leaders frame Germans as the true victims of Hitler and National Socialism. This narrative inverts historical responsibility, absolving Germany of its guilt for the Holocaust by portraying Germans as the primary sufferers rather than the perpetrators.
All this plays out on social media, part of the party’s strategy to push the boundaries of acceptable discourse, allowing rhetoric that would never pass journalistic gatekeeping. Through strategic insinuations and coded language, the AfD plants ideas that, in the comment sections, are not only understood but often escalate into explicit antisemitism. A particularly striking example is the spread of antisemitic conspiracy myths, such as the false claim that wealthy Jews are orchestrating mass migration into Germany to “punish” Germany for the Holocaust. These narratives revive classic antisemitic stereotypes, depicting Jews as manipulative string-pullers who secretly control social change, further fueling resentment and radicalization among the party’s supporters.
The AfD purports to protect Jewish life in Germany by combating antisemitism among Muslim immigrants. This narrative shifts the focus onto Muslims and immigrants, distracting from the fact that the party still trades in antisemitic statements. Moreover, the AfD employs calculated philosemitism, that is, the idealization of Jewish life and its history, by expressing selective solidarity with Israel, further bolstering its image as a defender of Jewish interests while deflecting criticism of its own extremist agenda.
With the doubling of its mandates, the party now has significantly more resources, including a larger budget for staff and advisors. This enables the AfD to advance its political narrative with greater influence. The doubling of state party funding also allows the expansion of party-affiliated organizations and foundations.
With 152 seats in the Bundestag, the AfD can now claim more committee seats and even leadership positions, significantly expanding its influence. This could have far-reaching consequences, such as cutting the funding of educational projects against antisemitism or student trips to Holocaust memorial sites, basically, the implementing the “180-degree turn” in Holocaust memory culture that the AfD has always wanted.
By rewriting the history of the Holocaust, the AfD erases Jewish victimhood, distorting historical truth and undermining Germany’s responsibility for its past. The normalization of antisemitic rhetoric further endangers the Jewish community, exacerbating existing threats and fostering an increasingly hostile environment. The legitimization of a radical right-wing party like the AfD, particularly through mainstream German support, accelerates the collective erosion of historical memory, weakening society’s acknowledgment of the crimes committed by the Nazi generation.
If history is rewritten, it loses its power as a warning. History may not repeat itself, but it can indicate the direction in which Germany is heading. The few Holocaust survivors living in Germany today are witnessing a party gain power that seeks to erase their history. Their warning was clear: ‘Never again.’ The question is: Do Germans care?
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