AfD co-leaders Tino Chrupalla (left) and Alice Weidel arrive at the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, federal party conference at the Magdeburg Messe, Germany. AP

It was in the 1920s that the Nazi party was rising in Germany. And it seems to be happening with the rise of right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD), and it enjoys the support of 20 per cent people in Germany.

Germany’s leaders of mainstream political parties, the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, along with smaller parties like Free Democrats and the Green Party, are all concerned about the rising electoral clout of AfD, and they are worried that AfD will score big in the June election to European parliament, and it will score well again in three state elections in east Germany in September.

The mainstream parties do not want Germany to face the rightwing nightmare that the country faced in the 1920s and 1930s and the destruction of Germany that followed. And they are considering the options. They are wary of using the legal method of getting AfD banned because it is against the Constitution, but they feel that it might make the rightwing party more popular. All over Europe, right-wing racist parties are winning elections, but compared to other countries, German leaders and people are acutely aware of the dangers of a right-wing party coming to power in the country.

They have not forgotten the crimes of the Nazis under Hitler and they have not forgotten the lessons. The present generation of leaders want to safeguard democracy in Germany at all costs. The other option they are considering is whether all of the mainstream political parties should present a united front and put up a single candidate in the European Parliament elections to defeat the AfD. This is something that has been done in France. When Jacques Chirac was fighting the presidential election in 2002, and the far-right led by Jean-Marie Le Pen of National Front came second beating socialist Lionel Jospin, the socialists and the Communists voted for the conservative Chirac to keep out Le Pen in the run-off.

The seriousness of the threat posed by AfD to German democracy is seen in the mass demonstrations of thousands of people against the rightwing party. And Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz addressing the Bundestag, the lower House of the German parliament, to mark the Holocaust, said that democrats must stand together and reminded them of AfD’s declared policy of sending back those with foreign backgrounds to the countries they come from, called ‘remigration’. He said, “The word ‘remigration’ is reminiscent of the darkest times in German history.”

He warned that those who remain silent are complicit. Conservative lawmaker Marco Wanderwitz, who is seeking a ban on AfD, said “We once again have a right-wing extremist party…that wants to destroy our free, democratic basic order, and that we have not managed politically to constrain in the last 10 years.” But there is the fear that a ban on AfD would make

heroes and martyrs. Said Sven Schulze, a conservative leader in the province of Saxony-Anhalt, “We have to avoid conferring (on the AfD) martyr status and rather fight it politically with arguments.” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmerman of the Free Democratic Party says, “We have to force the AfD into campaign mode by showing people they are a danger for Germany and Europe.”

The AfD is already crying foul, saying that the other parties are afraid of its growing popularity and its electoral success. Says Christoph Berndt, the party leader in the parliament of Brandenburg, “What’s happening here is a huge scandal: a government with nothing to offer politically is now resorting out of despair and fear of AfD’s looming electoral successes to the most disgraceful measures.” Germany is facing a dangerous situation which it had not in the last 80 years.