Afd merchandise, including stickers reading “Remigration”, is on display in the Hyparschale hall in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, during a regional party congress on April 11, 2026.
RONNY HARTMANN / AFP
It is becoming more and more difficult for the German establishment parties not to work with the rising opposition.
The German establishment’s ‘firewall,’ designed to exclude the AfD from political influence, is continuing to crumble. Indeed, the opposition’s ever-growing support base means it could be no other way.
The latest evidence of this shift comes from Biebesheim, in Hesse, where local council officials from Friedrich Merz’s CDU last week voted with the AfD in the election of honorary deputy mayors, and helped to secure the populist party a seat on the municipal executive board.
German daily Frankfurter Allgemeinereported that this “sparked outrage” among the other mainstream factions. CDU district chairman Stefan Sauer also announced that his group “will not tolerate any cooperation with the AfD,” and expulsion proceedings have been launched against those who voted with the party.
But AfD MP Ruben Rupp on Monday suggested that such cooperations are becoming harder for the establishment to avoid due to the opposition’s rising popularity, hailing that the “AfD is making an impact!”
If you as voters elect the AfD strongly enough, the firewall crumbles—and by now, that’s happening in Western Germany too!
The firewall policy has also been questioned by CDU politicians in Germany’s eastern states, including Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Brandenburg, and polling suggests it is also not supported by most establishment party supporters.
After expulsion proceedings were launched against those Biebesheim officials who voted with the AfD, former CDU official Erika Steinbach jibed that “democracy seems to be a foreign word for this CDU district association.”
Another AfD politician, Richard Graupner, added that “if this continues, the CDU will soon define itself more by excluded than by active members.”
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
