On the evening of Germany’s election night, January 23, 2025, a couple of friends and I decided to make the most of a year-abroad cultural experience and headed to the post-election day party held by Die Linke (The Left) in Berlin. Jubilation from the party’s politicians, who had exceeded all expectations, seeped through the crowd. It was undoubtedly party time for the country’s left.
A three-minute walk down the road, in Die Grüne (The Greens) camp, one imagines that the mood was markedly more sombre (not least as our party-ready throng was not allowed in for “security reasons”).
Since the German federal election in 2021, they were down more than 3% on their vote share. A similar story was also true for the other players in the former governing coalition: the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and centre-right Liberals (FDP) were punished by voters in this election. The FDP did not achieve the 5% vote share needed for representation in the German parliament. The SPD were down nearly 10% from their 2021 result, relegating them to third place for the first time in their party’s history.
To anyone with a vague understanding of German history, Sunday’s election results map paints a worryingly familiar picture. Almost as if it were drawn by hand, there is a stark division between Germany’s old East and West – an uncanny resemblance to its former border. This coincides with the alarming rise of the German far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The AfD almost entirely swept the old-East, losing out only in and around Berlin (always the rebel) and one constituency in southern Leipzig (often dubbed the new Berlin due to its counterculture mood).
The AfD has been a hot topic in European politics in recent years, with the party symbolising a wider rise of right-wing populism on the continent. To many onlookers, Sunday’s result was deeply concerning as the party had doubled its vote share since the last election. They were particularly successful in converting non-voters, drawing around two million previous non-voters to their side. Additionally, they won over approximately a million former Conservative (CDU/CSU) supporters and poached 890,000 from the FDP.
Whilst their rampant success in the country’s East is undeniable, the AfD also saw success in the West, leading the largest share of second votes in Gelsenkirchen and Kaiserslautern. Moreover, they were able to win over a large share of the votes in states like Baden-Württemburg and Rheinland-Palatinate. Although not quite to the same extent as the East, the West contributed its fair share to the AfD’s success in this election.
As mentioned earlier, the country’s left also celebrated notable wins on Sunday, particularly in the capital. However, even in Berlin, the voting map tells a familiar story, with East and West being split in their political allegiances. Treptower-Köpenick, Mitte (historically in the East, but its electoral region now includes parts of the old West), and Pankow were all wins for the Left on the electoral second vote, whilst the old West of the city went almost entirely to the CDU. Yet, even in unruly Berlin, the AfD enjoyed a fair amount of success, being the second largest party in Berlin-Lichtenberg, just one percentage point behind the Left, and even winning Berlin Marzahn-Hellersdorf on the first and second votes.
The two opposites of the left and far-right parties garnered unexpected success, earning almost 30% of the vote. This polarised voting tendency highlights a country divided and discontented.
This move towards the political extremes underscores a perceived failure of traditional, centrist politics. Germany’s economic struggles of late have been well-documented and are one key reason for dissatisfaction, especially in the East. Industry in the East has suffered, along with the rest of the country, since the start of the war in Ukraine. Hikes in energy prices have made manufacturing less profitable as their goods cannot compete internationally. Wages remain lower in the East, and huge layoffs from BASF and Alstom – some of the country’s manufacturing giants – in eastern cities only mount these frustrations.
The East, in particular, appears to have been left behind. Merkel’s low-debt, low public spending policy has alienated many in the region. Life satisfaction is noticeably lower than in the West, and “only 38% of East Germans see reunification as a success”. As a result, many are looking for someone to blame. Migrants have been a particular target of the AfD, whose “remigration” policy – associated with mass deportation of migrants and “unintegrated” citizens – is a stark rejection of Germany welcoming 6.43 million migrants between 2013 and 2023.
Alternatively, it could be argued that Germany’s most pressing challenge is the lack of investment in infrastructure and economic modernisation. The German national rail service, Deutsche Bahn, once a symbol of German efficiency and planning, is recording record train delays due to outdated rail lines. Further, the German State Development Bank estimates the infrastructure investment shortfall to be at €186 billion, with crumbling bridges in Dresden and road and rail repairs across the country desperately needed. Ultimately, if spending and investment are low across the board, this is a problem for the country at large. With the historical differences between East and West, the East undeniably started from a worse position.
Sunday’s election could have gone a lot worse for Germany. The far-left, socially-conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and the FDP did not meet the 5% threshold, thus, parliament is less diluted than it could otherwise have been. Therefore, this could permit a familiar CDU/CSU-SPD “Grand Coalition”, a coalition that Merkel led for 12 years. CDU/CSU leader and future German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, undoubtedly has his work cut out for him.
With the AfD ready to fill the vacuum if this coalition fails, it is the last chance saloon for Germany’s political centrists, and the future of Europe could look very different if they fail. No pressure…