Antonia Ferrier
To save itself from an AfD government, Germany must ensure its economic dynamism benefits all regions of the country.
Within 24 hours, two very different Germanies were on display. Late Saturday night, from a launch pad above the Arctic Circle in Norway, a 28-meter rocket rose into the sky and deployed five satellites, making its builder, Isar Aerospace, the first European commercial space company to do so.
The next day, another part of Germany went to the polls. In Saxony-Anhalt, an eastern German state with less than 3 percent of the country’s population, more than 44 percent of voters chose the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD—the first time the party has won a state election in its history.
These are not two unrelated stories. Together, they represent a country rebuilding its future on the one hand, while a part of its population remains profoundly uncertain whether it has a place in it.
Isar Aerospace represents the Germany of the future: privately financed, valued at roughly €2 billion ($2.3 billion), and constructing a factory near Munich capable of producing 40 rockets a year. This is not Germany living off past industrial glory. It is Germans building something new. And Germany needs much more of it.
The old economic model—cheap Russian energy powering German industry and producing high-value exports for China, America, and the world—is gone. Building its replacement will be hard. And nowhere will that be politically harder than in places that have already lived through one enormous economic transformation.
The fall of communist East Germany (formally the German Democratic Republic, or GDR) in 1989 brought freedom, but also enormous economic upheaval to the people of Saxony-Anhalt. Factories closed, jobs disappeared, and careers built under the old system lost their value. Then the young, talented, and ambitious left. Many moved west and never returned. Towns shrank and the population aged.
That history matters. Many distrust established institutions and parties; some hold onto a complicated nostalgia for the perceived security of the GDR.
Today, Saxony-Anhalt is Germany’s oldest state, demographically speaking. The median age is 48.3 years, three years above the national median. And the economic erosion has not stopped. The unemployment rate is also significantly higher than the national figure, as the state has been shedding manufacturing jobs, especially since 2022.
For communities that had watched factories close and services deteriorate, the German government’s 2015 decision to admit large numbers of Syrian refugees—and provide housing, benefits and support—was a political powder keg. To many, it confirmed how distant Germany’s political and economic establishment had become from their lives, as they watched the state mobilize enormous resources for hundreds of thousands of newcomers.
In the decade since, that distrust has only deepened as Germany’s economic problems have mounted. And now the country is confronting another transformation. AI, automation, decarbonization, defense technology and advanced manufacturing are reshaping the economy. At the same time, war rages to Germany’s east, Chinese overcapacity bears down on its manufacturers, American tariffs squeeze exports, and domestic energy remains expensive.
For an older electorate that already lived through one wrenching transformation, the future can sound less like opportunity and more like another threat. That is the fertile ground on which the AfD has cultivated its base—not merely by exploiting nostalgia, but increasingly offering it as the answer to Germany’s problems. That the policies it proposes could economically devastate Germany is almost beside the point. The promise is that the clock can be turned back.
Alice Weidel, the AfD’s party leader, has advocated Germany leaving the European Union and abandoning the euro. And she wants to rebuild the economic and political relationship with Moscow that underpinned not only the GDR, but also Angela Merkel’s economic model.
The consequences could be enormous. The German Economic Institute estimates that a Brexit-style German exit from the EU could cost €690 billion ($801 billion) in economic output and 2.5 million jobs over five years. For a party winning more than 44 percent in a state haunted by disappearing industries and jobs, proposing an economic rupture that could destroy millions more is a remarkable answer.
Then there is Russia. Weidel has said that “cheap energy from Russia was the secret of the success of ‘Made in Germany.’ We need it back.” Some of her AfD colleagues have traveled to Moscow seeking closer relations with a country increasingly organized around war, sanctions evasion, and confrontation with Europe. This does not sound like building the economy of the future.
But the contradiction is even starker in Saxony-Anhalt itself. In August, an explosive-laden drone was discovered near a Ukrainian aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport. German authorities attributed the attempted attack to Russia. The AfD wants Germany to make itself economically dependent again on a country that has repeatedly attacked it. There is no road back.
Germany cannot reverse its demographic aging, eliminate Chinese competition, wish away American tariffs, or resurrect its old relationship with Russia. Nor, however, can the answer be to leave Saxony-Anhalt to managed decline.
Which brings us back to the rocket. Isar Aerospace’s first launch failed 30 seconds after takeoff. They built another, and this weekend it reached orbit. They didn’t take no for an answer.
Thankfully, Isar is not alone: German startups attracted €7.2 billion ($8.4 billion) in venture capital last year, including a record €2.9 billion ($3.4 billion) for artificial intelligence. These founders are building the companies, factories and technologies that will employ the next generation of Germans and help meet the demands of the future.
That matters because an aging country like Germany cannot finance tomorrow’s pensions, healthcare and security from yesterday’s prosperity. It needs new companies, new industries and new wealth.
But that future cannot belong only to Munich, Berlin, and Germany’s other winners. The government, working with private industry, has an obligation to drive investment, new factories and productive employment to places like Saxony-Anhalt—to give communities that have already endured decades of upheaval a tangible stake in what comes next. If Germany’s economic renewal is real but large parts of the country do not feel part of it, the political consequences will be profound.
Germany clearly can still build a modern economic future. The question is whether it can build one that enough Germans believe includes them.
*Antonia Ferrier is a contributing editor at The National Interest and a longtime Republican strategist with extensive experience on Capitol Hill, including serving as staff director for former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). She previously served as vice president for external affairs at the International Republican Institute and was a fellow at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
Source: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-afds-electoral-victory-is-a-tale-of-two-germanies
