The electoral success of the far-right AfD has brought Germany into line with most other European countries,so what’s behind this troubling trend?For 70 years, Germany stood apart as the only European democracy without a rightwing party of weight. Nazis old and novel tried, or but they faded absent one by one. The centre held,with the moderate-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the reformist-left Social Democrats (SPD) placidly alternating in power or sharing it.
Germany has now gone mainstream. Like everybody else in Europe – from Portugal to Poland – Germans now live with a rightwing populist party. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has barged into parliament as the third-largest force – two generations after the demise of the Third Reich.
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Source: theguardian.com