Almost every night, you can find a documentary on World War II when flipping through channels on German television. Despite the strong result of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party with 20 percent of the vote, Germany’s active memory culture of the Holocaust serves as a basis for its democracy and as a push it needs to get serious on defense spending.
President Donald Trump was right to criticize Germany, during his first term for its anemic defense spending, reliance on Russian natural gas, and loose stance on migration. All those issues came roaring back during the short election campaign season after the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government last fall. But the Trump administration’s coddling of the AfD—giving it license to shrug away history—will have the opposite effect to what the U.S. president is looking for. It will inhibit Germany from acting in the U.S.’s interests on issues ranging from containing China to taking more responsibility for Europe’s security architecture.
Germany’s festering problems, ranging from woefully equipped armed forces to a lack of energy diversification, became blatantly apparent after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Scholz then announced a Zeitenwende, or turning point, and called for Germany to transform for a new era. A 100 billion euro fund for the military was established, but Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) were in an unwieldy coalition with the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP). His government succumbed to infighting, with each party catering to its base rather than concentrating on Germany’s deep-seated weaknesses.
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The AfD was able to capitalize on Germany’s blind spots, polling consistently showed that the economy and migration were priorities for the German electorate. A spate of attacks on the part of migrants has unnerved the country. Underinvestment in infrastructure and innovation coupled with a misplaced faith in renewable energy in the short term has left the European Union‘s most populous member—and the world’s third largest economy—facing high energy costs, perpetually delayed trains, and an absence of influential tech-industry players. Talk of deindustrialization has been hard to swallow for a country that has measured its strength in economic terms since the end of World War II.
In addition to a contracting economy over the last two years and concerns over migration, Germany confronts war on its doorstep—the largest since World War II. Trump’s tough love during his first time in the White House spurred Germany and other European countries to spend more on defense, and this accelerated with Ukraine’s plight. Today Germany and its European partners have pledged and given approximately $204.1 billion compared to America’s $183 billion.
The conservative Christian Democrats came in first with nearly 30 percent of the vote, positioning Friedrich Merz to be the next chancellor of Germany. It is crystal clear to him and his likely coalition partner, the SPD, that Trump would like to alter the eight-decade history of U.S. security on the continent. But they won’t stand for moving past the history of the Holocaust nor normalizing the AfD. Germany’s speech laws may overreach at times, but they have enabled the country to deal with its past and become the responsible power it is today.
Despite its many scandals, the AfD has found a home in a Germany that thought itself inoculated against fascism by its own dark history. But AfD doubled its success since the last election. Like many far-right parties in Europe, the AfD has moved the political discourse toward stricter migration. But even peers in France, like the National Rally, find the AfD’s brand too virulent to associate with.
Leading AfD figures have derided the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin and Germany’s domestic intelligence services have parts of the party under surveillance for extremism and therefore endangering democracy.
Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance have openly embraced the AfD, which is strange, not least because the AfD is, at its core, anti-American and would be the first to throw in its lot with China or Russia to strengthen Germany’s economy.
The next German government enters a new, uncertain phase of history. Something is stirring within Berlin’s body politic, no doubt because of Trump. There is already a readiness to do more on defense in the name of protecting its democracy. A more prominent AfD will only jeopardize the German appetite for a remilitarized nation that takes more responsibility in Europe.
Sudha David-Wilp is Vice President of External Relations and a Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Based out of Berlin, David-Wilp is an expert on German-American relations and the transatlantic partnership.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
