Resisting an authoritarian takeover – lessons from Germany
Posted by Thomas Klikauer
Ever since its inception, Germany’s the neo-fascist AfD has climbed in public polling and election results.
For the unsuspecting outsider, the party’s acronym “AfD” stands for Alternative for Germany/Deutschland.
For its hard-core radical right devotee, AfD means Alles für Deutschland – the slogan of Hitler’s paramilitary, thuggish street-fighting platoon of the SA.
Only recently, a CDU politician called Jens Spahn, who is always at pains to be in the headlines, advocated a closer neo-fascist-conservative CDU-AfD alliance.
His suggestion is not new. Historically, this was the way Adolf Hitler got into power. Lacking sufficient public support in 1933, Hitler got into power with the kind assistance of Germany’s conservatives.
Otherwise known for his “mask-scandal” costing millions of taxpayers’ money, Spahn seeks to replicate Hitler’s 1993 take-over. In the year 2025, Spahn is suggesting a conservative (CDU) – neo-fascist (AfD) collusion.
A recent book called Machtübernahme or “The Taking of Power” highlights what such a conservative-fascist alliance [CDU/AfD] would mean for Germany and how resistance against such an AfD takeover can succeed.
One of the key questions is: what do we do when the AfD comes into government? Given the lessons learned from Hitler’s takeover in 1933, the author of the book, Arne Semsrott, has some useful advice.
He calls on trade unions, democratic political parties, NGOs, state officials, civil society, Germany’s judiciary, companies, and the media to prepare for such an AfD conquest and to resist such an authoritarian overthrow.
What a democratic resistance could look like is shown here. In preparation for the AfD’s authoritarian takeover, one possible scenario might contain the following:
We are at an election evening at some day into the near future in Germany. It’s shortly after 6pm and the champagne is popping at the neo-fascist AfD’s headquarter. The AfD has become Germany’s strongest political force.
Yet, the celebrations of Germany’s Neo-Nazi are somewhat dampened by the fact that their party cannot rule alone.
The snag on the way towards fascism is that it will be very difficult to form a government for the neo-fascist AfD without forming a coalition government with one of the remaining democratic parties.
On that election night, Germany’s democratic parties react with shock. Yet, they were not surprised. The media had been pushing topics that favour the AfD – migration, hate, mass deportations, being German and their anti-liberal and anti-democratic ideology of gender-madness, etc.
These – and not mass poverty, inequality, global warming, etc. – had dominated Germany’s election campaign.
At the end of a long evening, Germany’s conservative party – the CDU – and their chairman addresses the possibility of tolerating an AfD minority government.
Similar to 1933, the CDU claims state responsibility and their duty to “save the country from chaos”.
With an AfD-led government, Germany’s democratic parties play through what could come in the coming weeks and months, if not years.
Yet before all that, there is a space for resistance against German Neo-Nazism, neo-fascism, and the neo-fascist AfD.
One might think of all this as guide to resistance against a potential far-right government run by the neo-fascist AfD or similar far right thugs in other countries.
First of all, great political power can be found even in a party that is a junior partner like the neo-fascist AfD in future coalition government dominated by the conservative CDU.
Perhaps and also hopefully, German conservatives have learned the lesson from 1933 and will not assist the AfD in putting in a Hitler-like Enabling Law. It was this Nazi law that formally ended democracy in Germany in the year 1933.
Meanwhile, what today’s AfD had achieve was a minority government with a junior partner. In the immediate months after the neo-fascist AfD ascent to power, there might not be any major changes to Germany’s laws.
In Germany, the democratically elected parliament is still the sole legislator and not Germany’s federal government that would then be run by the AfD.
Like Adolf Hitler throughout the 1930s, the neo-fascist AfD failed to capture 50% of votes in Germany. In other words, the AfD cannot eliminate democracy – at least not immediately.
The neo-fascist AfD could certainly not eliminate democracy when being in a minority government. Nor could the AfD do that as junior partner in a coalition government formed with a democratic party. In this scenario, as long as the neo-fascist AfD remains below 50%, Germany’s parliament would still have a majority of democratic political parties.
But that may not even be necessary. In Germany, as elsewhere, there is an enormous amount of political power below the level of parliamentarian proceedings and the formal law.
With a strong electoral performance at the ballot box, the AfD would have a lot of opportunities to make life hell for millions of people in Germany.
For example, if the AfD has a ministry in its hands, its AfD-minister can determine the practical design of laws, issue regulations, set up internal-administrative instructions and fill central administrative positions – without the interference of parliament.
All of these are decisive factors for the extent of the power and reach which such an AfD-run ministry would have under the ideological command of the neo-fascist AfD party.
From the AfD’s ideological point of view, the choice of which ministry the AfD should occupy is easy and relatively straight forward.
The neo-fascist AfD is likely to take Germany’s Ministry of the Interior. Most probably, it will be renamed into something akin to Ministry of the German Homeland and Volksgemeinschaft.
The neo-fascist AfD would want this ministry because it runs the police, migration and refugees. Most importantly, this ministry also runs Germany’s secret service (domestic intelligence service) or as officially known as the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Now renamed into Office of the Protection of German Ethnic Plurality (read: the Aryan race).
Beyond all that, the neo-fascist AfD could also implement five strategic steps after taking power:
- The Exchange of Personnel: political – not necessarily administrative – officials can be replaced by the neo-fascist party stooges at any time without the need to give a reason – according to German custom.
- Commanding administrative staff: in such a future AfD ministry, Germany’s anti-discrimination office could prosecute anything the neo-fascist AfD deems to hold anti-German hostility (read: progressives, liberals and people with a democratic belief.
- Secret Service: under the tutelage of the AfD, Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution could primarily target democrats and progressives – now labelled Marxist extremism and enemies of Germany. In return, the AfD could replace staff that previously targeted Germany’s vast sector of violent Neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists.
- Germany’s Police: the police would immediately end any disciplinary proceedings against police officers who are members of right-wing extremist organisations and engage in Neo-Nazi online chat groups.
- Funding: the neo-fascist AfD would reallocate state funds away from supporting projects that back democracy. These state funds will be placed in a new funding pot for associations that combat migration (read: groups such as Neo-Nazis, far right hooligans, etc.).
To preserve what became known as façade democracy – maintaining the outward appearance of democracy while running an authoritarian regime – and to avoid being seen as having instigated a coup d’état, none of the neo-fascist AfD’s initial moves towards authoritarianism come as the one big step.
Cunningly, the neo-fascist AfD will avoid being perceived as having overstepped the final red line towards the destruction of democracy.
To take up an example mentioned above. In the immediate months of the AfD takeover, Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution would be reduced to “watch” right-wing extremists and Neo-Nazis (read: do nothing).
Alternatively, this ministerial department would be deprived of personnel so that it become inefficient and, de facto, ceases to operate. Here too, a façade is kept up for the time being.
Some of the AfD’s strategies are straight copy-cats from Germany’s Nazi Era (1933 to 1945). Yet, for the scenario outlined above, the archetypal formula did not come directly from Germany’s Nazi past.
Instead, the scenario came from an examination of how far-right parties had acted in other European countries.
This is exactly what the AfD is currently doing – it is examining other far right parties in Europe. It is rather plausible for the neo-fascist AfD to follow other far right parties on their march towards an authoritarian regime – camouflaged as a façade democracy.
Yet, in developing the scenario of an AfD takeover, one should not only analyse today’s examples of right-wing populist and far-right strategies around the world, but also the strategies from Germany’s Nazi era.
For example, the AfD’s unofficial Führer – Björn Höcke – is a history teacher. He too, looks at what Hitler’s NSDAP has done. And then, rather cunningly, follows that as much as he possibly can given his numerous court cases in which he lost his many battles against democracy and is, quite regularly, convicted of hate speech.
In the end, the book argues for an early and well-organised resistance under the slogan Never Again!
Such an anti-far right resistance calls on people in public offices, trade unions, the judiciary, companies and the media to network and to unite Germany’s democratic forces against the authoritarian onslaught.
People united in support of democracy should – today – start to consider how they behave in the event of the likely emergency when democracy comes under threat. Beyond all that, the following three things should be done:
- State Officials: German officials are obliged by the oath to Germany’s constitution – known as the Basic Law – to refuse illegal orders. German administrators should seek allies for this at an early stage.
- Trade Unions: Germany’s still relatively powerful trade unions should test the possibilities of political strikes and other form of industrial actions against a far-right takeover.
- Companies: Companies should clearly position themselves internally (at the workplace) and externally (in the public domain) against far right extremism. Many companies already do that. German companies should not accept orders from a far-right government.
The fact is that such a right-wing extremist takeover of power can be achieved through rather simple means instigated by rather simple people (read: the squads of the neo-fascist AfD).
The triumphs of the neo-fascist AfD also came because of the politics of recent years, strong support from the media and the success of the AfD in moving Germany’s political climate toward the far right.
On this, one should also issue an appeal to democratic politicians – in particular to conservatives – to moderate themselves and not to fall into the communication trap set out by the far right – taking on their issues.
Secondly, democratic parties need to secure the rule of law and safeguard the existence of democracy in the event of a takeover of power by the far right.
Democratic resistance against the far right demands not only the uprising of decent people supportive of democracy, it needs the uprising of democratic politicians as well.
These can ensure that democratic structures are strengthened. However, the example of Germany also shows that – even after millions of people had rallied against the neo-fascist AfD at the beginning of 2024 – no Law to Promote Democracy was created in Germany.
Yet, despite failing to introduce such a law that would have fortified democracy in Germany, politics has not completely been inactive in Germany.
Only recently, Germany’s Green, social-democratic and neoliberal coalition government under Olaf Scholz agreed to toughen the independence of Germany’s Supreme Court against politically motivated far right bullying, right-wing intimidation, and neo-fascist influence peddling.
Photo: (source: www.verfassungsschutz.bayern.de/)
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