The point of this election was never just about a nation’s struggle to rediscover its economic mojo or re-evaluate its asylum policy – important as those issues absolutely are.

It’s also about Germany’s ability to become the confident, world power that many of its allies want it to be.

While there are capitals in Europe looking to Berlin for global leadership, within Germany, the priorities are often different.

Merz will now need to balance those demands along with the inevitable compromises that come with coalition building.

His promise to represent everyone comes amidst clear and stark divides in Germany.

This election has again highlighted an east-west split, decades on from reunification.

Voting data so far suggests that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is solidifying its dominance in the former communist east while the Christian Democrats (CDU-CSU) continue to prevail in much of Germany’s south and west.

An ARD exit poll shows 18 to 24-year-olds were most likely to back the left Die Linke party – followed by the AfD.

An irony of this campaign has been that – of the four main parties – the one most guaranteed to not get power sucked up so much attention.

AfD’s rise is a central story of this election – and contemporary German politics.

This is a party blocked from government because of a policy of non-cooperation with the far-right, known as the “firewall”.

Sections of the AfD have been classified as right-wing extremist by domestic intelligence.

One of its most prominent figures, Bjorn Hocke, has been fined for using a banned Nazi-era slogan – Alles fur Deutschland.

Eyebrows have been raised as some AfD supporters have reportedly since morphed the phrase into, “Alice fur Deutschland” – in reference to leader, Alice Weidel.

Those people may suggest it’s a finger up to an establishment that they think finds spurious excuses to smear them.

Others worry that it’s a sign of something far more sinister.

The AfD has become ever-bolder, some might even argue reckless, in its rhetoric.

On the campaign trail, we heard one AfD councillor – in a row with two men of colour – say: “Go back to your Heimat (homeland) if you don’t like this here.”

He did so, as we were openly filming him – then flatly denied it was racist.

Yet a stream of controversies hasn’t stopped the AfD from enjoying its best ever result.

In second place, it hasn’t outperformed expectations but this still marks the strongest showing for a far-right party in post-war Germany.

Already social media savvy, it has a powerful ally in tech billionaire Elon Musk who’s openly endorsed the party.

Many talk of 2025 as an inflection point for Germany.

Either this could be the high watermark for the far-right – or the moment that will be remembered as the key stepping stone on its path to power.

Much depends, say opponents of the AfD, on Germany’s centrist politicians getting their act together and tackling voters’ concerns.

If they don’t, the AfD will be a prime position to launch political attacks on the government as Germany’s main opposition party.

Frontwoman Alice Weidel has her eye on the next election as much as this one.

And the 46-year-old’s mission to make the AfD a more palatable political force appears to have been effective.

Finally, let’s not forget Olaf Scholz (even if many already have).

His allies say that the outgoing chancellor had to play a difficult hand; in charge of an unwieldy three-way coalition, at a time of crisis – notably dealing with the fallout from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

And Scholz may best be remembered for his Zeitenwende speech; a pledge – not fully delivered – to bring about a turning point in security and defence policy.

A failure to deliver now – at home or abroad – could spell further danger for the parties that occupy Germany’s political centre.

Riding on the back of that success, the party is now calling for an end to the consensus in German politics not to work with the far right.

That “firewall” – Brandmauer in German – has worked since the end of World War Two, but AfD joint leader Tino Chrupalla says: “Anyone who erects firewalls will get grilled behind them.”

There is a determination among all of Germany’s main parties to keep that block in place – and the German public backs them up: 69% see the AfD as a threat to democracy, according to voters surveyed on Sunday.

Friedrich Merz, who won the election for the conservatives, believes the only reason the AfD exists is because of problems such as migration and security that need to be addressed: “We need to resolve these problems… then that party, the AfD, will disappear.”

The AfD won 20.8% of the vote nationally, and as the light blue areas of the map show, it was dominant in the five states in the east, securing 34%.

“East Germans have made it very clear they no longer want a firewall,” said Tino Chrupalla.

Friedrich Merz will now go into talks on forming a government with the Social Democrats, who came third.

Even though his party won 28.6% of the vote, it was still their second-worst result since World War Two.

Support for the AfD doubled, and a million of their voters deserted Merz’s conservatives for them, according to a survey by research institute Infratest dimap.

Voters have not been put off by the fact that Germany’s domestic intelligence classifies parts of the AfD as right-wing extremist – or that the party has now embraced a policy called “remigration”.

The AfD argues that remigration means deporting immigrants convicted of crime, but the term has been used by the extreme right to mean mass deportations.

One of the big issues for the Christian Democrats is how to get their voters back and stop losing more.

Merz has already flirted with the AfD in parliament, relying on their votes to push through a motion on migration.

But he was clearly stung by a public outcry and the mass protests that followed in many German cities.

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting is unlikely to try that again, especially if he forms a government with the centre-left.

But now the AfD has more than 150 seats in parliament, its supporters in particular believe it is time for the firewall to go.

“I just hope that the firewall will fall. But we all know that it won’t be like that,” says pro-AfD TikTok influencer Celina Brychcy, 26.

“I think it will fall at the latest when new elections are held. Then they’ll have to realise at some point they can’t get through with what they’re doing right now.”

“I think the Brandmauer will stay,” says Dominic, 30, who voted for the AfD in Saxony. “I want the government to really think about their own people and their own country.”

Read more on the German election here:

Pressure to take down the long-standing firewall is not just coming from the AfD, but from leading figures in the Trump administration too, including US Vice-President JD Vance and Elon Musk, who has repeatedly backed the party.

Most of the voices you hear challenging the firewall come from the east, which may not be surprising considering the deep reach of the AfD, especially in the five eastern states out of a total of 16 across Germany.

They won 38.6% of the vote in Thuringia and 37.% in both Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, far ahead of the CDU. It makes them increasingly difficult to keep at arm’s length.

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On one of the big talkshows on German TV on Monday night, Harsh but Fair, one local mayor from Saxony, Mirko Geissler, believed the AfD should be put on the “playing field”, so they could show what they could do. If not, they would end up surging to 40-50% in the polls, he warned.

Liane Bach, an independent mayor from a village in Thuringia said that in her region, “AfD voters aren’t right-wing extremists”.

A CDU politician on the programme, Philippe Anthor, conceded there should be “no firewalls between the democratic parties and people who vote AfD”.

That is the main issue the big national parties will have to address. How to avoid ostracising AfD voters who clearly have no problem with the firewall being breached.

One mayor pointed out that one of her fellow residents who was also an AfD councillor was fixing the local fountain. It made no sense not to work with him.

Prof Conrad Ziller from the University of Duisburg-Essen believes the greatest threat to the firewall could come at state level, rather than nationally.

“If you have trouble building a coalition in a state, then at some point, there could be a minority government that relies on the AfD, or gets votes from the AfD from time to time.”

On a national level, the worst-case scenario would be for a breakdown in a Merz-led coalition: “Merz could make mistakes. If he gets really tough on immigration, it might become problematic with the SPD.”

Germany has already seen one early election because of a coalition collapse, and the AfD’s Alice Weidel has made clear she is looking for early elections.

Her repeated appearances on TV election debates have made her a prominent figure in Germany and helped raise her party’s profile.

But it was the constant focus on migration and security that became the number one issue for AfD voters, partly fuelled by three deadly attacks, all allegedly carried out by immigrants.

Tackling insecurity, and the perception of it, will be an immediate task for the next government, when it eventually takes shape.

Underlying the urgency, Bavaria’s centre-right leader Markus Söder said the need to tackle immigration, along with Germany’s faltering economy, was “in fact, the last bullet of democracy”.

There is no question of breaching the long-standing firewall for the moment.

And the general secretary of Merz’s party, Tom Unger, was adamant that there should be no collaboration with a party that opposed Germany’s ties with the West, its membership of Nato and “the European idea”.

That was incompatible, he said, with the conservatives’ “core DNA”.

“Let’s celebrate tonight and in the morning, we’ll get to work,” he told cheering supporters. His immediate priority is to try to form a government with the third-placed Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz.

Even before the result was clear, Merz said his top priority was unity in Europe, so that “step by step, we can really achieve independence from the US”.

The other big winner in Sunday’s vote was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), who are celebrating a record second-place result of 20.8%.

The AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, did a victory lap of her supporters, but even her party had hoped for a greater result and the mood at AfD HQ was subdued.

Merz, 69, has never held a ministerial job, but he has promised if he becomes the next German chancellor to show leadership in Europe and beef up support for Ukraine.

Most Germans have been shocked by President Donald Trump’s conduct towards Ukraine and Europe and Friedrich Merz said the US leader had shown “the Americans are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe”.

Trump has labelled Ukraine’s leader a “dictator” and two of his leading figures have openly backed the AfD in the run-up to the vote. Vice-President JD Vance was accused of meddling in the vote during a visit to Munich, while billionaire Elon Musk has made repeated remarks on his X platform.

Friedrich Merz’s first priority will be to try to form a coalition made up of his Christian Democrats (and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU) and Scholz’s centre left, despite the Social Democrats’ worst-ever showing of 16.4%.

Merz’s CDU party leadership will meet on Monday and so will the Social Democrat SPD’s, separately, but Scholz will not take part in the talks.

Merz is keen to form a government by Easter. It could be possible, because between the two parties, they have 328 seats, a majority of 12 in the 630-seat parliament.

But it was not until the early hours of Monday that that became clear.

After the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition late last year, Merz had asked the electorate for a strong mandate to form a clear-cut coalition with one other party.

In the event, he secured enough seats only because two of the smaller parties failed to get into parliament.

A two-party coalition would enable him to solve as many of Germany’s problems as he could in four years, he said, from a stagnant economy to closing its borders to irregular migrants.

German voters had other ideas. They came out in big numbers, with a 83% turnout not seen since before reunification in 1990.

Merz’s Christian Democrats had been looking for more than the 28.6% of the vote they and their Bavarian sister party received.

His most likely partner was always going to be the Social Democrats – known in Germany as a GroKo, or grand coalition.

But Germany’s electorate has fractured, and the two big beasts of its post-war politics can no longer be sure of success.

The AfD under Alice Weidel enjoyed a 10-point increase in support on four years ago, their support boosted by anger over high prices and a series of deadly attacks in German cities.

Three took place during the election campaign.

Weidel also benefited from a successful TikTok campaign that drew in big numbers of young voters.

As results came in during the early hours of Monday, it became clear the AfD was far ahead of the other parties in the east, with a projected 34%, according to a survey for public broadcaster ZDF.

“Germans have voted for change,” said Weidel. She said Friedrich Merz’s attempt to forge a coalition would ultimately end in failure: “We’ll have fresh elections – I don’t think we’ll have to wait another four years.”

But just as the election map turned light blue in the east, much of the rest of Germany turned black – the colour of the CDU.

And Merz dismissed the rise of the AfD out of hand. “The party only exists because there have been problems that haven’t been solved. They’re happy if these problems get worse and worse.”

“We need to solve the problems… then that party, the AfD, will disappear.”

Merz was equally withering towards the new Trump administration.

President Trump did welcome Merz’s victory. He said it was proof that Germans were, like Americans, tired of “the no common sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration”.

If it was an overture, Merz did not take it as one. He told a round-table TV discussion on Sunday night that the interventions from Washington had been “no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow”.

Last week, Trump appeared to accuse Kyiv of starting the war which Russia unleashed on its neighbour exactly three years ago.

Merz’s victory was quickly welcomed by leaders across much of Europe. France’s Emmanuel Macron spoke of uniting at a time of uncertainty to “face the major challenges of the world and our continent”, while the UK’s Sir Keir Starmer sought to “enhance our joint security and deliver growth for both our countries”.

Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats continue to rely on older voters for their success, while voters aged 18-24 appear to be far more interested in both the AfD and another party, the Left, which surged in the polls in recent weeks.

Not long ago, the Left was heading out of the parliament, with poll numbers well below the 5% threshold.

But a series of TikTok videos showing co-leader Heidi Reichinnek giving fiery speeches in parliament went viral and they ended up close to 9%, and a quarter of the younger vote, according to an ARD survey.

Friedrich Merz, the 69-year-old conservative leader, is in pole position to become Germany’s next chancellor, in a vote closely watched in Europe and the US.

He promises to fix most problems in four years – a tall order for Europe’s biggest economy and a creaking infrastructure.

If Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) win, he will need to forge an alliance with at least one other party, most likely Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, whose government collapsed late last year.

On the eve of the vote, Merz was adamant there would be no deal with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is poised to become the second biggest political force, ahead of Scholz’s centre-left party.

Some 59.2 million Germans are eligible to vote, and while millions already have by post, polls indicate as many as 20% were undecided ahead of election day.

The polls close at 18:00 (17:00 GMT) with a clear idea of a result likely to emerge during the evening.

Voters are energised by this pivotal election, and campaigning continued right through Saturday evening with a final debate on national TV – the ninth this month.

This is a watershed moment as Germany will have to make big decisions on the world stage as well as at home.

Merz promises strong leadership in Europe, but Berlin is also under pressure to loosen the budget strings for its military.

As Ukraine’s second-biggest provider of military aid, Germany’s next government will face a US president who has condemned President Volodymyr Zelensky as a dictator and fractured the West’s united front against Russia.

German political leaders have also been shocked by US Vice-President JD Vance, who has met the AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, and called for an end to the long-standing taboo of talking to the far-right.

In Germany, that taboo is known as a firewall or brandmauer.

Merz was accused of breaking it last month when he used their support in parliament. There were protests against the far-right in several German cities on Saturday.

The AfD is already popular in several eastern states, but is rapidly growing in the west too, attracting support among younger Germans via TikTok.

One Weidel campaign video has had four million views.

Her message is simple: Vote AfD, break the firewall and change German politics.

But its voice has been loudest on migration and security after five deadly attacks since last May, including three during the election campaign in Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg and Munich – all allegedly carried out by immigrants.

A stabbing at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial on Friday night has kept the issue in the headlines. The victim survived, and police said the attacker was Syrian and his motive antisemitic.

The AfD has embraced a highly controversial policy called “remigration”, which it defines as deporting migrants who have committed crimes. But the term can also refer to the mass deportation of migrants and their descendants.

The anti-immigration party has already secured a foothold in parts of the west, especially in Germany’s old industrial heartland in the Ruhr valley.

In last summer’s European elections it won the vote in some northern areas of the city of Duisburg, with 20% in Marxloh, 25% in an adjacent area and 30% next door to that.

Marxloh is a vibrant district with a large immigrant community, known for its array of shops selling Turkish fashionwear for brides.

But it has also suffered extensively from the decline of the coal and steel industry and a lack of government investment.

In a park close to Marxloh’s remaining steelworks, five young men in their early 20s explained why they all planned to vote AfD.

“We’re young, we need work and they don’t give us a chance to find training,” one man complained.

“We’ve no money; everything’s more expensive; there aren’t many jobs any more and there’s so much dirt here.”

The AfD is not known for its social policies, but its message on security cuts through, and this group does not see the anti-immigration party as extreme.

“No, they’re just normal people.”

In the east, it is in the rural areas where the AfD does best, but in the west it is growing in cities that have lost their industrial base, says Prof Conrad Ziller of the University of Duisburg-Essen.

“Voices of people in favour of the AfD have become so loud, so if you’re in a doctor’s waiting room it’s really common to hear people chat about getting angry about the established politicians and government.”

Migration is the most common frustration, and he believes Weidel has capitalised on that by appearing so prominently in all the TV debates.

Often when the debate touched on the economy, social justice or inequality, Prof Ziller said “the AfD deflected it and said the main problem is not economics, it’s migration, and the government didn’t do a good job”.

While the opinion polls have been consistent about who is leading the race, some of the parties might not make it over the 5% threshold for the newly slimmed-down parliament.

If fewer parties make it into the 630-seat Bundestag, it will be more straightforward to form a coalition with a majority.

The economic liberals, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), were in the outgoing government but risk oblivion on Sunday along with left-wing populist party BSW.

The Left party, however, has seen a resurgence in recent days and pollsters suggest it will become the fifth largest party after the Greens.

It is labelled “radical”, “racist” and “anti-democratic” by opponents. Germany’s domestic intelligence service says the party is “anti-constitutional”.

But if polls are right, the AfD will become Germany’s second largest political force after elections this Sunday.

That would be a huge shift in tectonic plates, not just at home but across Europe.

Why is the AfD such a big deal, you might ask? Parties on the populist right have grown in support across much of Europe.

The AfD points to Donald Trump as well. They share his “anti-woke”, tough-on-migration, pro-fossil-fuel message. They too are keen to stop sending weapons to Ukraine, and to de-escalate tensions with Russia.

The Trump administration supports them right back – publicly, to the outrage of many Germans.

The thing is, Germany isn’t just any other country.

It is Europe’s largest economy, one of its most influential nations. It still carries the weight of its Nazi past. Alongside the UK and France, it’s one of the Big Three that helped shape and secure Europe’s liberal order and defence structures following both World War Two and the Cold War.

Never before in post-war Germany has a hard-right party been so successful, while on the cusp of being identified as a threat to the Federal Republic and its liberal constitution.

France’s influential opposition leader, Marine Le Pen, whose party is also considered far-right, has distanced herself from the AfD on the European stage, apparently judging its positions and ethno-nationalist reputation too radical.

The long-held assumption among the mainstream at home and abroad had been that Germany’s dark past immunised it against any serious flirtations with the extreme right.

But there’s a lot about this election that’s making observers shift their view of Germany. And I will come back to the AfD, which vigorously denies its “extremist” label.

Germans have suffered a kick in the gut – in terms of self-image and their country’s international reputation.

For years, they got used to being admired – and envied – as the economic powerhouse of Europe.

Vorsprung durch technik, roughly translating as “progress through technology”, was an advertising slogan for Audi cars in the 1980s. For decades it encapsulated Germany’s reputation in the international imagination.

The country was seen as modern, dynamic and technologically advanced. And the automobile industry was one of the main arteries pumping wealth into Germany’s economic heart.

But fundamental flaws have now been exposed in the German economic model.

It is widely viewed as kaputt (broken) – relying too heavily on energy-intensive, old-fashioned industries like combustion-engine cars and the chemical industry.

Critics question Germany’s lack of foresight, or ability to move with the times. Where was the serious investment in R&D? In big tech? In AI?

To make matters worse, during Angela Merkel’s 16 years as chancellor – she stepped down in 2021 – Germany became increasingly dependent on:

• exports to China
• cheap gas from Russia
• a US defence umbrella.

All of this left Germany very exposed.

Donald Trump now says Europe can no longer rely on US security support and guarantees.

China has made rapid advances in the automobile industry and dominates electric car technology. So far less need for German imports.

And Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine left Germany scrambling for alternative energy sources. Buying liquid natural gas, from the US and others, is expensive, leading to financial strain on many energy-intensive German businesses.

The result: Germany’s economy is sluggish and sticky. As the biggest member of the eurozone currency, that has an impact way beyond its borders. European allies are frustrated.

Germany’s military is also a source of irritation (that’s putting it politely) among European neighbours. Berlin is a key power in the defence alliance, Nato. Donald Trump’s return to the White House means Europeans need to provide more of their own capabilities.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a zeitenwende – a turning point – for his country’s depleted military, after Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Yet Germany’s military remains in a debilitated state – less battle-ready, we are told, than three years ago.

Partly due to its donations to Ukraine.

Germany, after the US, has been the biggest donor of military aid to Ukraine and most political parties in Germany are in favour of continuing to support Kyiv.

The AfD takes a very different stance. “Peace” is one of the most frequent signs you see at their rallies.

They want a rapprochement with Russia, to immediately stop sending weapons to Ukraine, and to use resources instead to build up Germany’s armed forces for protection at home.

More than 4,000 bridges in Germany are broken or in a dubious state. I could hardly believe my ears when I first heard that. But it is the reported figure in a country whose infrastructure has been quietly crumbling for years due to chronic under-investment – both public and private.

Train punctuality in Germany is appalling – worse than in the UK, which will astound weary British commuters.

Digitisation is lamentable too. Mobile phone reception is patchy outside cities and people are still known to use faxes!

But even if recent German governments had wanted to invest more, they faced legal limits on spending.

A debt brake was written into the German constitution following the financial crisis of 2008/9, with a constraint on new debt of no more than 0.35% of GDP, except in times of national emergency.

Germans didn’t trust their politicians any more.

They had seen government spending spiral at home and abroad. The euro currency, which Germany depends on, almost collapsed.

But what seemed to voters an anchor of financial stability then, now appears to many, a block to economic growth.

Rows about reforming the debt brake were the final straw leading to the collapse of Germany’s outgoing coalition, and the snap election this Sunday.

But, new German government beware: breaking the debt brake will be no mean feat. You need a two-thirds majority in parliament to change the German constitution.

Migration is a huge issue in Germany. And a big vote winner for the AfD.

It is far from the only country worrying about migration levels in Europe, but Germany alone took in over a million asylum seekers, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan, during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015/16.

The country has also opened its doors to 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees.

Many Germans were proud of what they called their “welcome culture”.

But a spate of attacks by asylum seekers from the Middle East and Afghanistan has re-ignited a debate about how open Germany’s borders should be.

There have been stabbings, a machete assault, a car ramming into civilians at a Christmas market and again at a recent trade union demonstration in Munich, where yet another small child was killed.

The AfD insists it is not racist or anti-migration, and that anyone is welcome in Germany if they arrive by legal means, get a job, contribute to society and respect local norms and culture.

The party says it would immediately deport all immigrants who commit a crime, and anyone who arrives here illegally.

That stance was applauded by numerous AfD supporters I spoke to at rallies in the lead-up to Sunday’s election – including young women who told me they no longer felt safe on the streets.

It’s also worth noting that in May, a German court found that “at least a significant part of the AfD” believed that anyone with a migrant heritage was not “properly German” – even if they held German citizenship.

It concluded that the AfD aimed to “grant German citizens with a migration background only a legally devalued status”. This goes against the German constitution.

Worried they could lose voters to the AfD over the question of migration and borders, Germany’s centre left and centre right have moved to the right in their rhetoric. This is a victory for the AfD, whatever the outcome of the election.

Even if it becomes the second largest force in parliament, as predicted, it is very, very unlikely to make it into Germany’s next government.

The post-World War Two political system in Germany is designed so that no single party can dominate parliament as the Nazis did after they were first voted in, in 1933.

Coalition-building is the name of the game. And there has been a so-called firewall in place since the end of World War Two – a cross-party consensus to keep the extreme right out of government.

The AfD insists it is conservative and libertarian, not a radical, right-wing force.

It points to its growing support base, in west as well as east Germany and among younger voters too. It accuses opponents of trying to shut it up, shut it down and keep it out of power. That, it says, is anti-democratic.

Elon Musk grabbed headlines Europe-wide when he proclaimed in December that only the AfD can save Germany.

The majority here still insists their country needs to be saved from AfD.

Conservative frontrunner Friedrich Merz told supporters that under his leadership, Germany would take responsibility in Europe, and that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would be consigned to the political margins once more.

He will end his Christian Democrat party’s campaign with a rally in Munich, while his rivals will make a final appeal in a TV “speed-dating” programme with voters.

For months German politics has been paralysed by the collapse of the previous government.

Now, hopes have been raised across Europe that this vote will bring some certainty to the EU’s biggest democracy and its biggest economy, which has struggled to escape from lingering recession.

Nothing will change overnight. No party can govern without forming a coalition, and that will take weeks.

Reviving the economy has been one of the two big issues of the campaign; the other has been migration and security, thrust on Germany’s politicians by a series of deadly attacks since May 2024.

The cities of Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg and Munich have all suffered grievous attacks. A Spanish tourist was stabbed at the Holocaust memorial in the centre of Berlin on Friday night, although his wounds are not considered life-threatening.

All the alleged attackers were immigrants, and the AfD under Alice Weidel has advanced to about 20% in the polls with its nationalist, anti-immigration message.

She has appealed to younger voters on social media, and is far ahead in the race on TikTok, with 870,000 followers. She has also been buoyed by support from both billionaire Elon Musk and US Vice-President JD Vance, who has been accused of meddling in the German campaign.

The AfD talks of securing Germany’s borders and deporting migrants who came illegally and committed crimes. But she uses the word “remigration” which has also been linked to mass deportations.

In Solingen, where a Syrian was accused of stabbing to death three people last August, hundreds of people turned out on Friday night to speak out against the rise of the far right.

“We have a lot of friends who grew up in Germany whose parents did not,” said one woman called Natalie, 35. “We don’t want anybody to kick them out and we don’t want our borders closed.”

One man called Jochen held up a sign that read “Never Again is Now!”

There was a large police presence at the protest, and Friday night’s stabbing in Berlin has heightened security fears.

A police union spokesman has warned of a risk of attacks aimed at destabilising democracy.

All the mainstream parties have ruled out working with the AfD in government, but if it polls higher than 20% it could double its number of seats to 150 in the 630-seat parliament.

Merz’s most likely partner is Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, although probably without Scholz himself. The message from his centre-left SPD as the final day of campaigning began was that every vote counts, and if Germans wanted a strong government they needed a strong SPD.

The Social Democrats are languishing in third in the polls, but Scholz is pinning his hopes on an estimated one in five undecided voters who could make a big difference.

Friedrich Merz was in a relaxed and confident mood when he appeared on stage this week in front of 1,200 supporters in the tech-hub city of Darmstadt near Frankfurt. But his message was stark as he turned his thoughts to Donald Trump’s presidency.

One hand in his pocket and the other holding the microphone, he spoke of unprecedented times and a “tectonic shift in the world’s centres of power”.

“A political order is now crumbling. What we have become used to for decades is breaking down.” He was not even sure if the US would join Germany in celebrating the 70th year of its accession to Nato in the summer.

He castigated the outgoing government for failing to take a leading role on the international stage.

“The German government and chancellor must finally take on a leading role in Europe again. If I’m elected I will spend a significant part of my time keeping this European Union together.”

Germans have had almost nightly opportunities to see their political leaders thrash out the big issues in TV debates, and Alice Weidel has been in the thick of them, sharing the stage with both Merz and Scholz.

In the run-up to the vote she met Vice-President JD Vance, who castigated German politicians for raising a “firewall” against the far right and of ignoring “the will of the voters”.

That firewall – brandmauer in German – has held strong since the end of the war, although Merz himself was accused of breaking it when he relied on the support of the AfD last month in a motion on migration.

He has faced demonstrations ever since, and there was a noisy protest when he visited Darmstadt.

PhD student Annika, 29, held a Herz statt Merz banner – love instead of Merz. “He says he won’t do something with the far-right AfD, but his actions contradict what he says. I don’t trust him at all.”

Merz appears to have been stung by the outcry and has sought to reassure voters there will be “no tolerance, no minority government [with the AfD], nothing at all”.

Now, as Germany waits to see just how well the far right does in the upcoming election, the question is why so many young men in particular are being drawn to the far right and what the consequences could be for a country that’s deeply conscious of its Nazi past.

Pew research in 2024 found that 26% of German men had positive views of the AfD compared to 11% of women, and the share of men holding this opinion has risen 10 points since 2022.

In the elections for the European Parliament in 2024, according to German exit polls the number of under 24-year-olds, both male and female, who voted for the AfD in Germany rose to 16 per cent, up by 11 points from 2019.

This comes at a time of rising general anxiety among young people according to a recent study by the German Institute for Generational Research.

In a sample size of 1,000 Germans aged 16 to 25, anxiety levels were the highest amongst respondents who class themselves as far-right while they were the lowest amongst people who put themselves in the middle of the political spectrum.

Women were more likely to be concerned for their rights and those of minority groups while men were found to be more worried about conservative values that are less based around rights.

Dr Rüdiger Maas, from the German think tank the Institute for Generational Research, says parties on the left often focus on themes such as feminism, equality and women’s rights.

“Overall, men don’t see themselves in these themes,” he tells us. “That is why they have a tendency to vote further right.”

Hard, populist right parties have also done well in countries such as France, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Italy.

“Sixty per cent of young men under 30 would consider voting for the far right in EU countries and this is much higher than the share among women,” says Prof Abou-Chadi, in analysis drawn from a subset of the 2024 European Election Study.

As well as gender, migration and economic issues, social media is playing a part. Platforms like TikTok allow political groups to bypass mainstream, traditional media, which the far right regard as hostile.

It’s clear that AfD “dominates” TikTok when compared to other German parties, says Mauritius Dorn from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). It has 539,000 followers on its parliamentary account, compared to 158,000 for the SPD who currently have the most seats in the German parliament.

And it isn’t just official accounts but a “considerable number of unofficial fan accounts also help to disseminate the party’s content”, says Mr Dorn.

Through setting up 10 “persona-based” accounts with different user profiles, they found, “those users who are more on the right-wing spectrum… see a lot of AfD content whereas users from the leftist spectrum see a more diverse set of political content.”

TikTok has said it doesn’t “differentiate” between the right, left or centre of politics and works to stay at the “forefront” of tackling misinformation.

Dorn observes that other parties recognised sites such as TikTok “too late”, which means they’re playing catch-up in establishing a strong footprint on the platform.

We’ve met one AfD influencer, Celina Brychcy – a 25-year-old TikTokker who has more than 167,000 followers – 53% of whom are male, with 76% aged between 18 and 35.

She mainly shares dance, trend and lifestyle videos, but also pro-AfD content.

Ms Brychcy says she doesn’t make money from promoting the AfD but does it because she believes in the cause and wants to “get a message across”.

Her political ideals include wanting the return of military service, more support for mothers who want or need to stay at home and stricter border controls.

When I press her about whether her views amount to a rejection of multiculturalism she replied no, but believes people should “integrate.”

“There are certain people who just don’t fit in with us Germans,” she added but repeatedly insisted she is not racist and doesn’t have “anything against foreigners.”

Ms Brychcy is also against “role reversal” when it comes to the way men and women dress.

A reaction against “gender ideology” is another issue identified by Tarik Abou-Chadi, a professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford, as feeding far-right support amongst the young – something that is echoed by the Institute for Generational Research.

They asked first-time voters whether they found the LGBTQ+ trend “übertrieben”, which literally means “exaggerated” or over the top. The respondents who showed the highest level of agreement with that question were those who planned to support the AfD.

When I challenge Ms Brychcy over whether that could be seen as retrograde, she replied that “biologically speaking, we are men and women” and thinks people should present accordingly.

Ms Brychcy tells me she has lost a couple of friends because of her politics – and now mostly spends time with those of a similar outlook.

She doesn’t agree with those who view the AfD as a dangerous movement – rather one that would offer genuine, radical change.

When I ask Ms Brychcy if she considers herself as far-right, she says that on certain issues – such as border control and crime, “Definitely yes”.

It’s a striking reply, particularly as often, the label of far-right is rejected by supporters of the AfD, including by the party leader, Alice Weidel, who insists she heads a conservative, libertarian movement.

With the horrors of the Nazis further and further in the past, this is a generation that’s grown up with parties like the AfD – whether that’s on TV talk shows or in parliament after the AfD got its first MPs in 2017.

Prof Abou-Chadi believes that the far right, generally, has become more normalised to the point, “They don’t seem so extreme any more.”

That’s despite party scandals such as a talisman of the AfD’s hard right, Björn Höcke, being fined twice last year for using a Nazi slogan, though he denied doing so knowingly.

The AfD, in three German states, is classified as right-wing extremist by authorities – including in Saxony, a designation the party unsuccessfully challenged in court.

It’s a state where the number of “right-wing extremist individuals” had reached a “new high” – according to a report released last year by Saxony’s domestic intelligence service – that showed data back to 2015.

In a shopping mall in the city of Chemnitz in Saxony, we meet a group of young men who – while they won’t go on the record – tell us they’re right wing.

Dressed in black, with uniformly short hair, they express beliefs that homosexuality is wrong and fear that the German “race” is under threat because of the growing migrant community.

They question narratives about their country’s past, seemingly a reference to the Nazi era.

Diana Schwitalla has been teaching history and social studies for eight years. She says she has had to confront a case of Holocaust denial in the classroom and has heard other troubling remarks.

“We hear the Second World War was actually a good thing, and there was a reason people died then – and that this is good. Hitler is described as a good man,” says Ms Schwitalla.

She adds, “Many students… very young students, {who} say it doesn’t matter who I vote for, they’ll do what they want ‘up there’ anyway. The question of who’s ‘up there’, I don’t get an answer to that.”

We met her over the course of two days – including at an adult vocational college in Freiberg that sits on the grounds of a former Nazi concentration camp. Jewish women, brought from Auschwitz, were used for slave labour here to make parts for aeroplanes.

We did hear some talk of opposition to the levels of immigration into Germany plus a desire for national pride.

The first day we met Ms Schwitalla, she is helping to organise a mock election for the students as a way of engaging them about democracy at another college site in the town of Flöha – about 15 miles away from Freiberg.

We spoke to Cora, Melina and Joey, all 18.

Cora says she has heard men of her age express a desire for women to be in the home harking back to a time “when women took care of the children and when the husband comes home from work, the food is cooked”. She likens it to the so-called “Trad Wife” trend of adhering to traditional gender roles.

Cora and Melina voice fears about a rollback of women’s rights – including on abortion, even – remarkably – the right to vote. “Luckily that’s not being discussed in politics yet,” says Melina, “but I’ve heard discussions about women not being allowed to vote in elections any more.”

A small group of students line up to vote around lunchtime and we watch as the results come in with “Die Linke” scoring top – the left party that’s relatively popular amongst the young but polling at only around five per cent nationwide.

The AfD came second, reinforcing what Prof Abou-Chadi has found, that, “younger people are much more likely to go for a further left or further right party than a centrist one”.

The AfD, whose signature issues include security, borders and migrant crime, are now even embracing the concept of “remigration” – a buzz-word in Europe’s far right that’s widely understood to mean mass deportations.

Speaking to people in Germany, it is clear that support for the AfD can not just be read as some form of protest vote, even if there is frustration with the parties that have traditionally governed Germany. Celina, Dominic and Nick – and others we spoke to – genuinely hope and believe that the AfD could set Germany on the path of radical change.

It’s still the case that other parties will not go into coalition with the AfD but in January a non-binding motion was passed in the German parliament thanks to AfD votes for the first time.

Prof Abou-Chadi believes in the longer term, there could be an even more seismic change.

“And as soon as the more mainstream parties start giving up the ‘firewall’ or cordon sanitaire the far right will start cannibalising the right.

“It’s very likely that, in many or most European countries, the far-right parties will be the main party on the right – or already are,” he says.

Parties like the AfD have worked hard to try and normalise themselves in the eyes of the public.

While there are people in Germany and Europe who view the far right as an extremist, even anti-democratic, force – it appears that the ‘normalisation’ effort is working, not least of all among the young.

The protests came after some parties voted alongside the far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), over a non-binding resolution on immigration last week.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz, who is tipped to be Germany’s next chancellor, had tried to rely on support from AfD twice last week, including for a bill aimed at curbing immigration.

The move sparked anger among many, with organisers of the demonstration saying people had turned out to condemn what they see as a breach of the country’s agreement not to work with the far right at the national level.

The demonstrations come three weeks before national elections and follow similar protests across Germany on Saturday.

Police estimate that about 160,000 people came out to protest on Sunday. The rally began just outside the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament building and moved on towards the CDU’s headquarters.

Protester Anna Schwarz, 34, told AFP she was joining a political rally for the first because “we can no longer avert our gaze”.

“(We want to) make as much noise as possible to call for the self-described ‘democratic’ parties to protect this democracy,” she said.

The CDU is leading in the polls ahead of Germany’s snap election this month. The AfD is currently polling in second place, although Merz has ruled out any kind of coalition with them.

On Wednesday, a non-binding motion over changes to immigration law passed through Germany’s parliament.

Two days later, a bill aimed at reducing immigration numbers and family reunion rights was rejected by Germany’s parliament by 350 votes to 338. The bill was put forward by the CDU and backed by the far-right.

The strategy was widely condemned, including by Merz’s predecessor as CDU leader and former chancellor Angela Merkel, who accused him of turning his back on a previous pledge not to work with AfD in the Bundestag.

Merz defended his actions as “necessary” and said he had not sought the party’s support.

“A right decision doesn’t become wrong just because the wrong people agree to it,” he said last week.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz, who is tipped to be Germany’s next chancellor, had tried to rely on support from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party for the second time in a week – but the bill was defeated by 350 votes to 338.

The strategy was widely condemned, including by Merz’s predecessor as CDU leader and former chancellor Angela Merkel, who accused him of turning his back on a previous pledge not to work with AfD in the Bundestag.

Merz defended his actions as “necessary” and said he had not sought the party’s support.

“A right decision doesn’t become wrong just because the wrong people agree to it,” he said.

The CDU leader had been hoping that a tougher stance on migration would win over supporters of the AfD – but his reliance on that party for this vote risks losing more moderate voters.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Germany on Thursday night in opposition to the CDU’s cooperation with the far-right.

The CDU is leading in the polls ahead of Germany’s snap election next month. The AfD is currently polling in second place, although Merz has ruled out any kind of coalition with them.

Wednesday’s vote saw a non-binding motion over changes to immigration law pass through parliament. Friday’s vote was on draft legislation which was aimed at curbing immigration numbers and family reunion rights.

The proposed legislation was opposed by parties including current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD). Scholz is among those to have criticised Merz’s reliance on the AfD, calling it an “unforgivable mistake”.

“Since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany over 75 years ago, there has always been a clear consensus among all democrats in our parliaments: we do not make common cause with the far-right,” he said.

In a rare political intervention, Merkel said Merz was breaking a pledge made in November to work with the SDP and the Greens to pass legislation, not the AfD. She described the pledge as an “expression of great state political responsibility”.

On Wednesday, Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD, accused mainstream parties of disrespecting German voters by refusing to work with her party.

Sections of the AfD have been classed as right-wing extremists by domestic intelligence.

Germany’s already fraught debate on immigration has flared up following a series of fatal attacks where the suspect is an asylum seeker, most recently in the city of Aschaffenburg.

It has become a central issue in campaigning for the election, which was triggered by the collapse of Scholz’s governing coalition.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative CDU party, may need AfD votes to pass legislation toughening immigration laws.

Former chancellor Angela Merkel has accused him of turning his back on a previous pledge not to work with AfD in the Bundestag.

Merz has defended his actions as “necessary” and said that he had not sought nor wanted AfD’s support.

“A right decision doesn’t become wrong just because the wrong people agree to it,” he said.

On Friday morning the CDU said it had requested a pause ahead of the vote and appeared to be holding talks on whether the legislation should be voted on or sent back to committee.

The CDU is leading in the polls ahead of Germany’s snap election next month. The AfD is currently polling in second place, although Merz has ruled out any kind of coalition with them.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Germany on Thursday night in opposition to the CDU’s cooperation with the far-right.

While Wednesday’s vote saw a non-binding motion over changes to immigration law pass through parliament, actual legislation will be tabled on Friday aimed at curbing immigration numbers and family reunion rights.

However, his proposed measures are highly unlikely to come into effect this side of February’s snap election and – if they did – could clash with EU law.

The proposed legislation is opposed by parties including current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD). Scholz is among those to have criticised Merz’s reliance on the AfD, calling it an “unforgivable mistake”.

“Since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany over 75 years ago, there has always been a clear consensus among all democrats in our parliaments: we do not make common cause with the far right,” he said.

In her rare intervention in politics, Merkel said he was breaking a pledge made in November to work with the Social Democratic Party and the Greens to pass legislation, not the AfD. She described the pledge as an “expression of great state political responsibility”.

Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD, meanwhile, accused mainstream parties on Wednesday of disrespecting German voters by refusing to work with her party.

Sections of the AfD have been classed as right-wing extremists by domestic intelligence, but

Wednesday’s vote saw Germany’s already fraught debate on immigration has flared up following a series of fatal attacks where the suspect is an asylum-seeker, most recently in the city of Aschaffenburg.

It has become a central issue in campaigning for the election, which was triggered by the collapse of Scholz’s governing coalition.