Germany risks Weimar-style divisions, President Steinmeier warns

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that Germany risked slipping back into the divisions of the pre-World War Two Weimar Republic in a flood of disinformation spread ‌by antidemocratic extremists.

Steinmeier's remarks, in a speech marking the anniversary of German reunification in 1990, follow two state elections in eastern Germany last month where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party took the largest share of the vote. A third election, in the capital Berlin, was won by The Left, a ‌far-left party. The speech made no explicit reference to any party but Steinmeier denounced the "intolerable political demagoguery of extremist forces" which he said were threatening ‌freedom and democracy and endangering the unity of the country.

The elections in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democrats suffered the worst defeat in their history, have shaken the ruling coalition, which came to power last year pledging to revive Germany's stagnating economy. Instead, Merz has presided over a period of deepening ⁠voter worries about ​falling living standards and economic ⁠decline, which have helped to keep the AfD at the top of political opinion polls for more than a year.

The AfD, for its part, rejects the far-right label, which ⁠it says is used by mainstream parties to discredit it and cast doubt on ideas held by millions of Germans. Germany remains Europe's largest economy and biggest industrial power. ​But its manufacturing base has been squeezed by increasing competition from China, while Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought war to its ⁠doorstep and cut off the cheap oil and gas it once relied on.

Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who served as foreign minister under former Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Germany needed "well-considered, consistent, ⁠professional ​and steadfast government policy more urgently than ever". He said democratic debate was being undermined by sophisticated disinformation campaigns "concocted by Kremlin trolls, by German far-right extremists or even by delusional left-wing authoritarian figures, and flooded onto the internet by unscrupulous internet oligarchs."

He acknowledged that many in both eastern and ⁠western Germany distrusted the political system and up to a third of voters "demonstrate, through their voting decisions, that they are turning their backs on key ⁠fundamental rights of our republic." Steinmeier, whose ⁠position is largely symbolic but carries moral sway, drew a direct comparison with the period before World War Two, when bitter political divisions led to the collapse of Germany's Weimar Republic democracy.

"Whether Berlin is becoming more ‌like the Weimar Republic ‌is a question that has yet to be answered," he said.