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The AfD is not one of them. It is outside, it is outside the basic consensus, which is shared by the other parties in the Bundestag. This includes: The Federal Republic makes nothing in common with the time of National Socialism, but on the contrary tries to be a democratic, peaceful, philanthropic state.
In the AfD there are a lot of politicians who verbally violate this maxim, even in Thuringia. Therefore, it would be fundamentally wrong, the CDU would get involved in "open-ended discussions" with the right-wing populists. 17 members of the Union faction in the Thuringian state parliament have demanded exactly that in a paper. Previously, the deputy fraction leader Michael Heym had thought a coalition of his party with the AfD conceivable.
The AfD has crossed a red line
It's not nice to isolate or exclude a person, a group, a party, but sometimes it has to be. Because in all social contexts there are red lines. Those who cross them leave the common area and can no longer claim to be accepted by the others. The AfD has taken this step.
The Federal Republic would not have been able to emerge or survive if it had not radically detached itself from the Nazi past. Anything else would have been unacceptable to our neighbors in Europe, the Soviet Union and the United States. Added to that were decency, shock, guilt, which oblige Germans on a completely new path. That's true today. Decades can not do that.
The AfD does not want to accept this legacy. The state chairman of Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has called for "a change in the political agenda of 180 degrees". So he wants to march in the opposite direction. In addition, in many parts of the AfD there is a group-focused enmity, especially against Muslims, but also other migrants. MEP Nicolaus Fest said: "We called on guest workers and there was rabble."
The question concerns the whole country - not only Thuringia
AfD politicians like to defend themselves with the argument that it is nonsense that they are all Nazis. That's not the point. The red line is not: Someone is clearly convicting as a Nazi. The red line is: Someone wants a political change in remembrance, someone shows people inhospitable to groups.
It may well be that between the programs of CDU and AfD there are larger intersections. But even if they agreed to 95 percent, the history policy and misanthropy should exclude cooperation. It's not about the size of an intersection, it's about what does not work.
And it is not up to the Thuringian CDU to cooperate with the AfD. The question is bigger. It affects the whole country and the relations of the Federal Republic to other states, which are still suspicious of whether history could be repeated. The Chancellor should not come into the situation of having to explain in Israel or elsewhere why her CDU is cooperating with a party that demands a change of political mindset.
Security would be at risk with the AfD
Internally, the Chancellor is ultimately responsible for the safety of all people. She can not guarantee that security, but she must be the target of her policy. If her party, no matter where, connected with the AfD, Merkel can no longer credibly represent this claim. Therefore, the Federal CDU is right if it restricts the Thuringian MPs. Nevertheless, a debate is now open that will not disappear so quickly. The CDU must stay here until the AfD changes.
The right-wing populists could demand a stricter asylum policy even without misanthropy or flirtation with the Nazi past. Whether that would be good or not, it would not be a violation of the basic consensus. A conservative coalition would be conceivable. The fact that the AfD does not want to give up its extreme positions, even though it so harms their power interests, shows that these positions are not any exacerbations or aberrations. They are part of the core.