German Jews feel ‘sucker punched’ after first election of far-Right since Nazis

Josef Schuster says ‘Germany is reeling’ as AfD party make huge gains

Germany’s Jewish community has said the huge gains for the far-Right in state elections are a “sucker punch of historic dimensions”.
“Germany is reeling,” Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews said in response to the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieving landmark results in state elections in Thuringia and Saxony on Sunday.
“Can we recover from this hit? Our free society must not fall, especially in the face of Islamist terror,” he wrote in an article for Bild newspaper.
“Anyone who has ever seen a boxing match knows this moment: a fighter’s fist hits with full force and time seems to stand still for a brief moment… The state elections in Saxony and Thuringia were such a moment for Germany – an impact punch/sucker punch of historic dimensions,” he added.
In Thuringia, where the AfD is led by extremist figure Björn Höcke, the party won the most votes (33 per cent) at a state election for the first time since being founded eleven years ago.
In Saxony, the AfD came a close second to the centre-Right Christian Democrats (CDU).
Mr Höcke was recently found guilty in court of using banned Nazi slogans during his speeches and has openly advocated cutting the country’s population by 20 million by pushing out migrants.
Mr Höcke himself however suffered a shock defeat in his constituency on Sunday, securing only 39 per cent against 43 per cent for CDU rival Christian Tischner.
In what is being described as a “dirty trick,” he was still able to secure a seat in the state parliament via the proportional representation list after he blocked his party from running a full set of constituency candidates.
Other winners on the night were the BSW, a Left-wing party set up less than nine months ago by Sahra Wagenknecht.
Ms Wagenknecht wants Germany to sue for peace with Vladimir Putin and is staunchly critical of the country’s liberal migration policies.
Despite record results for the AfD, the anti-immigrant party is unlikely to be brought into state governments with most competitors refusing to work with them over their more radical positions.
The so-called “firewall” to the far-Right will leave the two states in the former east of the country with the prospect of increasingly unstable governance.
In Saxony, the CDU are likely to have little choice but to continue an unpopular coalition with the Greens and the Social Democrats.
In Thuringia, the CDU may have little choice but to join forces with Die Linke, the Left-wing party they have also refused to work with in the past.
After his Social Democrats failed to get into the double figures in either state, Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, described the results as “truly bitter”.