Opinion: Do Germans Remember What They Are Being Asked to Become?

September 6, 2026

By Yiannis Damellos

EUROPE / GERMANY

Source: DEUTSCHE WELLE

“Imagine there’s no countries; it isn’t hard to do. 

Nothing to kill or die for.”

Tell that to the Germans, Johnnie boy. In an imaginary world, perhaps there are no borders. But in this space and time, there are borders, Trump walls, ICE agents and the hunting of immigrants—all justified by the perfectly legitimate principle that nations have the right to control their borders. The million-euro German question, however, is this: What happens when immigration becomes the doorway through which national identity begins to reshape the state? And here is the question Germany's history forces us to ask: Does historical memory still serve the Germans well, or is it time to refresh it?

The result in Saxony-Anhalt should make Germany stop and listen. The Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won roughly 44% of the vote, more than twice its previous showing and a historic result for a party classified by German domestic intelligence as right-wing extremist. Its lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, celebrated by declaring: “We are going to get our country back.” AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla went further: “From here, we will change Germany.”

There is nothing undemocratic about Germans demanding tighter immigration controls, safer streets or a government that listens to them. Those are legitimate political demands, and dismissing every German who votes AfD as an extremist would be both inaccurate and politically foolish. But to call a man a fool? Don't know about that. Opinions differ. The important question is not why Germans are angry. It is what political program is being offered as the answer to that anger.

Because the answer goes considerably further than immigration, and this is scary.

The AfD's program in Saxony-Anhalt calls for tougher deportation policies, major changes to education and integration, stronger nationalism and a more traditional definition of German identity, alongside restrictions affecting cultural and public institutions. That is significant because any country can enforce its borders without turning national identity into a political test.

And that is where the argument becomes uncomfortable. Who decides what “traditional German identity” actually means? Who belongs to it automatically, who has to prove that they belong, and who gets to decide when someone has failed that test? Once the State begins defining the authentic national identity, politics is no longer simply about controlling a border. It begins to determine the cultural boundaries of the nation itself.

That is the point Germans should examine very carefully. National identity can unite people, but ultra-nationalism has another tendency: it divides citizens into those considered genuinely part of the nation and those regarded as insufficiently German, insufficiently loyal, or somehow responsible for the country's decline. The political target can begin with immigrants and end with anyone who challenges the definition of the nation being promoted. As it happened in the past with communists, anarchists, homosexuals, gypsies, and Jews.

And the danger is not nationalism itself. Democratic countries can and do have strong national and cultural identities. The danger begins when the nation, as a centerpiece for the survival of culture, is placed above the rights of the individual, when national belonging becomes more important than equal citizenship or equal opportunities and rights, and when pluralism is treated as weakness rather than as one of democracy's protections.

Let's clarify this: Is democracy just about the majority making decisions, or does it also involve protecting minorities, ensuring independent institutions, separating powers, allowing freedom of expression, and letting individuals disagree with the government without being seen as enemies of the State? 

A 44% election result can be a valid mandate to govern if the constitution allows it, but it doesn’t give the authority to impose authoritarian changes like those proposed by AfD in Germany.

That distinction is particularly important because the AfD is not merely proposing different policies. Critics within the party have reportedly been marginalized, dissent suppressed, and alternative views sidelined, according to a Deutsche Welle investigation into the party's internal culture. This situation mirrors events from 1933. A political movement that demands unity from the country should also be judged by how much disagreement it can tolerate within its own ranks. Otherwise, those involved should honestly declare their desire to recreate a regime reminiscent of another Reich in today's world.

There is another practical contradiction worth considering. The promise of putting Germany first may sound economically reassuring, but Germany is one of the world's most interconnected economies. Its prosperity depends on trade, European markets, international supply chains and a workforce that increasingly includes people with migrant backgrounds. A politics of exclusion may win votes by promising to restore an imagined national independence while simultaneously weakening some of the economic foundations on which modern Germany and the EU, in general, depend.

Even the phrase “national interest” deserves scrutiny. Whose interest? The industrialist's? The pensioner's? The farmer's? The young German looking for an affordable home? The immigrant who has lived in Germany for twenty years? The German whose parents came from somewhere else? The answer cannot simply be “Germany,” because Germany is not an abstract creature with one interest. Germany is millions of individuals with competing interests and equal claims to the protection of the law.

This is also why the political firewall around the AfD must be strengthened. Mainstream parties have refused to cooperate with it, while others argue that excluding a party with such a large vote is undemocratic. 

Real democracy has never meant that every electoral majority is entitled to dismantle every institutional safeguard. This is exemplified by leaders like Trump in the U.S., and Mitsotakis and Netanyahu in Greece and Israel, respectively. The concept of a firewall is not inherently democratic or undemocratic; the real question is whether Germany can protect its constitutional order while also addressing the grievances that are pushing voters towards the far right. This is a question that good democracies around the world should be considering for all their citizens. But it is a tough one to answer, when profit, capitalism and war still make the world go round.

Also, there is now another complication: disinformation. During the current election, fabricated videos circulated alleging that the vote had been rigged and that election workers had destroyed AfD ballots. Deutsche Welle linked some of the material to Russian disinformation operations. A democracy already divided by fear and resentment suddenly became considerably easier to destabilize when citizens can no longer agree on what actually happened.

Nonetheless, Germany faces a problem larger than the AfD's electoral success. It has to decide whether it can respond to legitimate public dissatisfaction without allowing it to become a vehicle for transforming the country's political character to what it was before the end of WW2. 

In a modern democracy, every citizen of any country has the right to ask who enters their country. Germany has every right to demand that newcomers obey its laws, learn its language, and participate in its society. But it also has to ask what happens when the definition of belonging becomes more important than the rights of the person who belongs? What happens when immigrant shelters, mosques, or synagogues are burned, town halls are terrorized by stormtroopers, cultural practices are considered antinational? 

Let's talk about Reverse Colonization, or is it a taboo?

My personal take on the subject of Immigration and the Clash of Cultures is based on my academic background and, specifically, Anthropology. In my humble opinion, what we are experiencing today is the legacy and backlash of Colonization, something that not too many members of AfD want to discuss. Well, in my field, we call it reverse colonization, and it is an anthropological and sociological concept that refers to the phenomenon where formerly colonized peoples or nations migrate to and establish a presence in the countries or territories that once colonized them (like the Pakistanis and Indians in England). This process can involve a variety of social, cultural, and economic exchanges as these groups assert their identities and influence in the former colonial powers. Well, it's a bummer! Who would ever believe that the old delusions of national grandeur would turn like a boomerang and hit the greedy colonizer back in the face?

I understand why this concept annoys the Ultra-Right nationalists. Because they now face the consequences of their actions. After squeezing the "national wealth" of other cultures for centuries, they are now scared of the complexities of power dynamics, identity, and cultural negotiation, challenging their traditional narrative of colonization that typically depicts a one-sided flow of influence from the colonizers to the colonized. Sorry, but in reverse colonization, the historical power relationship is altered, allowing those who were once marginalized or oppressed to reclaim agency and assert their cultural identities in the face of dominant narratives. And that's only fair. But AfD does not want to talk about multiculturalism, identity, and the legacies of colonialism. 

So, before “We are going to get our country back” becomes something much larger than an election slogan, Germany should be asking itself three questions. 

Back from whom?

And into what?

Do Germans remember what they are being asked to become?