Germany's Far Right Tests Strength in East as Merz Warns of 'Big Bang'

A set of normally sleepy eastern German elections became a test of the far right's reach on June 7. The AfD fielded strong candidates for the powerful post of district administrator (Landrat) in Saalekreis in Saxony-Anhalt, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt in Thuringia and Ostprignitz-Ruppin in Brandenburg, hoping to add to the single such post it already holds in Sonneberg. Its candidate in Saalfeld-Rudolstadt, state MP Thomas Benninghaus, belongs to the party's most hardline faction under Bjorn Hocke, and the AfD's branches in all three states are under surveillance by German intelligence as right-wing extremist. Nationally the party is polling 29 percent, ahead of Merz's CDU/CSU at 21 percent, with 77 percent of voters dissatisfied with the chancellor.

In the Saxon town of Aue-Bad Schlema, a runoff could produce Germany's first directly elected far-right mayor since 1945. Stefan Hartung, co-founder of the even more radical Freie Sachsen, led the May 10 first round with 29 percent, ahead of the CDU's Marcus Hoffmann (23.6 percent), the Free Voters' Danny Weber (22.5 percent), the AfD's own Lars Bochmann (18.5 percent) and the Left's Tony Neuss (6.4 percent), and could prevail with AfD support. That cooperation persists despite a formal incompatibility resolution the AfD passed in February 2022: official records show Free Saxons representatives sit in AfD groups in at least three city councils and one district council. Speaking in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Saturday, Merz warned against a possible AfD "big bang" -- "there is more at stake than just the future of a government" -- before the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6 and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20.

The unrest over the far right comes as Germany's industrial backbone strains. The country's struggling carmakers are weighing uses for underused factories: Volkswagen has confirmed talks with defence firms over its Osnabrueck plant, and officials in Saxony have welcomed potential tie-ups with Chinese manufacturers, as European producers contend with weak demand and a rocky EV transition. Politically motivated crimes, meanwhile, reached a new high in 2025.

On defence and abroad, Rheinmetall's reach widened: Romania signed a 5.7-billion-euro package on May 29 for 298 Lynx combat vehicles, Skyranger air-defence systems, ammunition and naval vessels through the EU's SAFE program, with deliveries from 2028 to 2030 and fresh Rheinmetall investment and thousands of jobs planned in the country. Merz himself travelled to London on June 7 to join Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer for talks on bolstering Ukraine's air defences.