Friedrich Merz, the AfD and the end of the West German Hochmut

After a majority of the Bundestag had decided last Wednesday to dismiss refuge people at the borders, with a majority from the Union, FDP and AfD, there was little stirring in me. My prevailing feeling was fatigue.

It was clear to me what had to come now. The outcry of the self -proclaimed anti -fascists. The triumphal chants of the extremists. The self -righteousness of Angela Merkel.

I had already lived through everything that happened in Berlin, at home, in Erfurt. First as an accident. Then as a calculation.

The little Thuringia, so much precarious provincial patriotism, must be the original. The peaceful colleague, who clumsens my columns, can smile so mildly-ironically: we cannot let this life output take ourselves away!

And because I am already there: Now it is over with the inexpensive arrogance with which my green -hearted Thuringia is looking down – as if there were only dictatorship -stranded people in addition to mixed dumplings and dying spruces.

But back to my evidence. It started almost exactly five years ago, even on a damn Wednesday. On February 5, 2020, I was sitting on the Press Records of the Thuringian state parliament and hectically typed a new comment into my laptop. Because the text I had prepared has just been corrected by reality.

The left Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow had already failed twice this morning with his re-election. Well, in the third ballot, in which the candidate with the “most voices” would be chosen from my premonition.

The AfD led by Björn Höcke did not vote for her applicant, a village mayor, but for the FDP state manager Thomas Kemmerich. Together with its parliamentary group and most MPs from the CDU, it was just enough to be the majority against the red-red-green minority coalition.

Ramelow had lost and Kemmerich was elected. The winner was still able to prevent the large slat and reject the office. But he didn’t even think about it (and also not a little something like a cabinet) and said yes. He was the prime minister of grace of right -wing extremist Höcke.

Hell immediately broke out, with demonstrations, special programs and international outrage. No Hitler comparison was too stupid to not be tweeted. Otherwise: this east again!

Exceptionally, I spare myself to speak to Kemmerich, Höcke and Ramelow. In any case, the excitement was maximum.

The newly elected SPD chairman Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans took the opportunity to test the exit from the grand coalition. Angela Merkel, as Chancellor, decreased by a podium in Pretoria that the choice “reversed” must be. At the same time, FDP boss Christian Lindner drove to Erfurt and made Kemmerich to announce the abdication.

CDU boss Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer also traveled to Thuringia. But she failed there with her attempt to convince the parliamentary group of the need for a new election. The corresponding decision of their Federal Presidium was not very interested in the MPs fearing their mandate.

After this shameful defeat, Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her withdrawal. Friedrich Merz took this in turn to apply for the party chair. And again. And again.

But this is not the only reason why a line can be pulled from 2020 to 2025, from the would-be president of the wannabe to the would-be chancellor. Because after Kemmerich had resigned, the new Thuringian CDU parliamentary group leader Mario Voigt with the left, SPD and the Greens closed a so-called stability mechanism.

The core of the agreement looked like this: Only such applications and draft laws that the four parties had previously made should be coordinated. As a result, the Höcke faction was cold.

Exactly this principle also announced Merz after the end of the traffic light coalition last November: Now that the opposition is in the majority, things should only be coordinated in the Bundestag until the Bundestag election. In this way, he said, the AfD would be taken out of the game.

But it goes on. After the state parliamentary election agreed with the stability pact failed in Thuringia in 2021, Voigt unilaterally terminated the agreement. Then he began to gradually rely on changing majorities.

On the one hand, he continued to vote with Ramelow’s minority government in existential laws such as the state budget. But on the other hand, he uses the AfD to create majorities in the opposition.

First it was an application against gender at the school. Then an FDP application for wind power. And finally a law to reduce real estate transfer tax.

The strategy was obvious. Before the state election, the CDU wanted to free itself from the hug of red-red-green and profil again. As a prize for this, she accepted the voices of right -wing extremists.

Voigt had coordinated with his chairman Merz. The Konrad-Adenauer-Haus told what it tells today: The CDU could not do without its beliefs because of the AfD. In any case, this is not a collaboration.

And as in February 2025, after the black and blue yellow majority, and three weeks before the Bundestag election. The SPD in particular now claims that Merz is preparing a government participation of the AfD. They do not fencing the angry Dementis of the Union. Now she finally has her mobilization topic.

But here too – I am really, very sorry – a look at Erfurt is recommended. The parliamentary election has been completed there and Voigt is Prime Minister. He, who put in the opposition on majorities with the AfD, has now formed a state government against the AfD, without a real majority, but with the party of ex-communist Sahra Wagenknecht.

The coalition agreement states that every majority is excluded with the Höcke faction. At this point I dare for the forecast that it will at least hold the next federal government as well.

For long -term predictions, developments in Thuringia remain to be seen, or in the now at least as adventurous Saxons. Thanks to Friedrich Merz, everything is now possible.

You can find all Martin Debes columns published so far .