The rise in popularity of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is no longer a phenomenon but has become one of the serious challenges for German and European politics. While in the mid-2010s the AfD was perceived as a protest group of Eurosceptics, today it is confidently competing with traditional parties and is becoming the number one political force in a few German regions.
The main factor behind the AfD’s success has been a deep crisis of confidence in those same traditional parties. A significant portion of German society associates the ruling CDU-CSU coalition with administrative inefficiency, internal conflicts, and an inability to respond quickly to socio-economic challenges. Rising energy prices, inflation, the housing crisis, and a perceived decline in living standards have fueled protest sentiment, especially among low- and middle-income groups.
The second key factor was the migration agenda. The AfD consistently exploits fears related to the growing number of refugees, the strain on the social welfare system, and security issues. At the same time, the party offers simple and radical solutions that resonate with voters who are tired of the mainstream’s compromising rhetoric.
The third reason is the regional economic and social differences between the German states. Even more than three decades after reunification, the eastern states of Germany still feel like “second-class citizens,” which is reflected in lower incomes, poor infrastructure, and an exodus of young people. The AfD has managed to incorporate this discontent into its narrative of “elite betrayal” and loss of national sovereignty.
Finally, the AfD effectively uses social media to create a parallel information space in which traditional media are presented as part of the “system.” The official accounts of the party and its leaders, in particular @AfD and @Alice_Weidel on Twitter, the AfD Deutschland and Alice Weidel pages on Facebook, as well as the official @afd account and personal profiles of leading AfD politicians on TikTok, allow the party to address its audience directly, bypassing journalistic moderation. The content is built around short, emotionally charged messages about migration, the energy crisis, sanctions, and “suppression of free speech,” which ensures high engagement and rapid dissemination within loyal communities.
At the same time, the AfD actively uses Telegram as a key platform for mobilizing and radicalizing its supporters. Channels such as AfD Kompakt, regional Telegram pages of state branches, and unaffiliated but loyal party communities broadcast an alternative agenda in which public television channels ARD and ZDF, as well as leading German publications, are systematically accused of propaganda and concealing “uncomfortable truths.” Of particular importance is the rapid response to high-profile events: crimes, protests, social conflicts. The AfD’s interpretation of events appears on social media before journalistic analysis, reinforcing a narrative that benefits the party and increasing distrust of traditional sources of information.
Support for the AfD is extremely unevenly distributed. While the party’s ratings at the federal level fluctuated between approximately 20-25% in 2023-2025, the figures are significantly higher in some states.
The AfD is showing the strongest growth in eastern Germany. In Saxony, Thuringia, and Saxony-Anhalt, polls recorded support levels of 30-38%, and in some districts even above 40%. By comparison, in western states such as North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria, the party has gained 12-18%, trailing behind the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats.
The contrast is particularly noticeable when comparing cities and rural areas. In large agglomerations, the AfD’s position is weaker, while in small towns and depressed regions it is becoming the leading political force. This makes the party structurally stable, as even with fluctuations in federal ratings, it retains a solid regional base.
The modern AfD is primarily associated with its two co-chairs, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla. Weidel positions herself as a pragmatic economist and tries to give the party a “respectable” image, while Chrupalla focuses on the radical-minded electorate in the eastern states.
The AfD’s ties to Russia have attracted particular attention in investigations by German and European media outlets. The party consistently opposes sanctions, criticizes military aid to Ukraine, and promotes the need to “restore dialogue” with Moscow, which brings its position closer to the Kremlin’s official line. These statements have been backed up by practical actions. In 2018, a group of AfD MPs, including Udo Hemmelgarn, Markus Fronmeier, and Stefan Koiter, visited annexed Crimea, despite the official position of the German government and the EU condemning Russia’s occupation of the peninsula. The visit was presented as a “private trip,” but was widely used by the Russian media for propaganda purposes.
After the start of full-scale war against Ukraine, contacts did not cease. AfD leader Tino Chrupalla publicly met with Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechayev in 2022-2023, which drew sharp criticism from other parties. In 2019, an investigation by Der Spiegel reported that AfD MP Markus Frohnmaier was considered in correspondence related to Russian structures as a politician “completely under Moscow’s control,” although he himself denied these accusations. In 2024, a new investigation by European media and Czech intelligence linked AfD MEP Petr Bystroň to possible financial flows from the pro-Russian media network Voice of Europe, raising questions once again about systematic Russian influence on the party. Although there is no official direct evidence of centralized Russian funding of the AfD, the combination of visits, personal contacts, and coinciding political positions has led German intelligence agencies to suspect that the party has close and politically significant ties to Russian influence structures.
In the upcoming federal and state elections, the AfD really has a chance to establish itself as the second strongest party in the country, and in some regions even as the strongest. In Thuringia, a state in eastern Germany, the AfD has already become the largest party after regional elections, receiving about 33% of the vote and significantly outperforming traditional forces. This is the first time in modern German history that a far-right party has taken a commanding lead at the state level. In other states, such as Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, the AfD is actively preparing campaigns to increase its representation and compete for leadership, although its support in the polls there is still lower than in the east.
The AfD’s impact on the overall political discourse in Germany goes beyond its immediate electoral successes. Even traditional parties, which previously avoided issues of migration and security, are increasingly adopting tougher rhetoric under pressure from public opinion. For example, in 2025, Friedrich Merz, leader of the right-wing CDU/CSU bloc, proposed mass deportations of migrants, which drew criticism from rivals and analysts as rhetoric close to the far-right agenda. Even more noticeable are the shifts in the policies of the domestic alliances. Some members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and even moderate conservatives from the Free Voters in Bavaria are beginning to put forward fairly tough initiatives on border security, expanding the police force, and curbing migration policy in order to counter the loss of votes to the AfD and win back lost voters. These changes reflect a broader trend toward the “normalization” of some right-wing rhetoric in the German political center, where migration and security issues are becoming key elements of election programs, and AfD’s competitors increasingly find it necessary not only to criticize it, but also to borrow its rhetoric in order to maintain their electoral positions.
For Germany, the rise of the AfD means further polarization of society and a weakening of the traditional model of consensus politics. For Europe, the consequences could be even broader. The rise of the AfD is part of a general trend toward the growth of right-wing and Eurosceptic forces, which potentially undermines EU unity on issues such as sanctions against Russia, support for Ukraine, and the deepening of European integration.