German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reacts in the background as the co-leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alice Weidel delivers a speech during a session at the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, at the Reichstag building in Berlin on October 16, 2025.
Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP
Voters are turning away from the mainstream because they are “disappointed with their policies.”
Germany’s governing coalition parties are sticking to their guns on their Brandmauer—or, ‘firewall’—policy forbidding any cooperation with the anti-immigration AfD. But they may soon have no choice but to change tack, given that most of their own voters don’t support the practice.
That’s according to a new ARD-DeutschlandTrend ‘special survey’ conducted earlier this month.
46% of CDU/CSU voter respondents said they support cooperation with the AfD on a “case-by-case basis.” A further 10% went further, saying they generally favour cooperation.
69% of all those surveyed said they agreed with the statement
The AfD will lose strength again if the federal government makes progress in key policy areas.
That happening is, however, far from likely.
Still, the poll’s suggestion that 40% of Union voters—and, indeed, of Germans more broadly—support the complete exclusion of the AfD is concerning in itself. Although, given that those who said they’d vote for the anti-immigration party most commonly cited “disappointment with the policies of the other parties,” this figure is likely to come down.
Indeed, as AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said on Wednesday, “The CDU/CSU doesn’t care what the majority wants.” Speaking in particular about the establishment’s approach to mass migration, she warned that “in states led by the Union parties, turbo-naturalisation is being carried out like crazy. Our country will disappear if this isn’t finally put to a stop.”
Das ist der CDU/CSU egal, was die Mehrheit will. In Unions-geführten Bundesländern wird turboeingebürgert, was das Zeug hält. Unser Land wird verschwinden, wenn dem nicht endlich Einhalt geboten wird. pic.twitter.com/uAPeiK5dEl
The AfD is also likely to be aided by the establishment’s phoney insistence that it is seeking to protect democracy by, er, countering the public’s democratic will—such as, in a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, by trying to oust a newly elected AfD deputy mayor.
It is worth noting on this point that more than half of the poll’s respondents said they believe describing the AfD as “undemocratic” only strengthens the party—a view shared by 77% of its supporters.
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_.
