Nazi slogan and soaring in polls: "Alternative to Gammarania" strengthens and causes a storm | Israel Hayom

Prosecutors in the German city of Halle, where a neo-Nazi tried four years ago to carry out an attack on a synagogue on Yom Kippur, are launching legal proceedings against a senior member of the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany party for using a Nazi slogan. The official is Björn Hecke, head of the Alternative for Germany faction in the regional parliament of the state of Thuringia, considered the main stronghold of the Alternative for Germany party.

At an election rally two years ago, Hecke used the slogan of the Nazi organization SA – "All for Germany." Hecke, who once headed the most extreme faction in the ranks of the Alternative for Germany, has for years been included in the German Shin Bet list of elements that pose a threat to the democratic order in Germany, and a German court can call him a "fascist."

Polls published last weekend showed that if general elections were held in Germany today, the Alternative for Germany party, which is officially boycotted by Israel, would have become the second largest party in the Bundestag alongside the current ruling party, the Social Democratic Party. Two polls published over the weekend, shocking the German political establishment, showed that in the event of an early election, the conservative Union party, made up of the Christian Democrats and the Christian Social, would have won the election with 29% support. The ruling Social Democratic Party would have received only 18% support, like the Alternative for Germany party, which in the last elections in September 2021 received only 10.3% of the vote and is now the fifth largest party in the Bundestag.

Alternative for Germany Party official Björn Haecke,

This is the best result in the polls that Alternative for Germany has achieved since it was founded ten years ago. In the 2017 general elections it became, as soon as it entered the Bundestag, the third largest party, but internal strife and ideological radicalization led to its weakening in the last general elections.

The Ukraine war and its economic consequences for Germany – including the current center-left government's policy of completely abandoning electricity generation through nuclear reactors and switching to alternative energy, persistent inflation, and growing poverty – have significantly strengthened public support for the Alternative for Germany, especially in the former East German regions, which are the party's main focus of support.

Since Germany's conservatives are still boycotting Alternative for Germany, seeing it as an extreme party and a rival competing with them for right-wing votes, the right does not have a majority to form a new government in Germany, and according to the latest poll, they will have to re-form a coalition with at least one left-wing party – an approach that under Chancellor Merkel severely damaged the conservatives' public support base and strengthened Alternative for Germany.

Alternative for Germany strongly opposes the environmental protection policy of the current German government, claiming that it harms the standard of living of the German population and increases poverty. The party also opposes Germany's military support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Despite Israel's official boycott of the party, in recent weeks two delegations of senior Israeli officials have visited Israel and held various political meetings. There are streams in the party that support Israel's right to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. On the other hand, the party also has a mainstream ideological stream that is accused by the German authorities of being a threat to the democratic order in the country due to its ideological proximity to National Socialist views.

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