Friedrich Merz is now on borrowed time. But that’s not why the AfD’s triumph is seismic | Jörg Lau

The anti-fascist consensus about our Nazi past is fundamental to German democracy. But that, shockingly, is being shattered

As shock at the scale of the far right’s resounding state-election victory in Germany reverberated on Sunday, not everybody was unhappy.

Seconds after the first exit polls from Saxony-Anhalt were revealed, Donald Trump posted the results on his Truth Social platform, seemingly delighted by the devastation of the centrist-conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the surge of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

Jörg Lau is an international correspondent for the German weekly Die Zeit