A far-right party saw a historic surge in support in Germany's election. Here's what to know

BERLIN (AP) — Alternative for Germany surged to the best showing by a far-right party since World War II in Sunday's national election and became the strongest political force in parts of the country.

Other parties say they won't work with the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), which fielded its first candidate for Germany's top job in co-leader Alice Weidel. But Sunday's second-place finish cemented AfD's status as a factor that other politicians can't ignore.

It has also become well-known outside Germany. The party has won enthusiastic support from Elon Musk, as well as attention from U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

AfD first entered Germany's national parliament eight years ago on the back of discontent with the arrival of large numbers of migrants in the mid-2010s, and curbing migration remains its signature theme. But the party has proven adept at harnessing discontent with other issues, too: Germany's move away from fossil fuels, restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and support for Ukraine after Russia's full-scale invasion three years ago.

How did it start?

The party was founded in 2013, and initially focused on opposition to bailouts for struggling countries in the eurozone debt crisis — measures that then-Chancellor Angela Merkel described as “without alternative.”

Over the years, AfD became more radical and repeatedly changed leaders. It was Merkel's decision in 2015 to allow in large numbers of migrants that supercharged it as a political force. In the 2017 national election, it won 12.6% of the vote to take seats in the German parliament for the first time.

Where does it stand now?

After returning to parliament in 2021 with reduced support of 10.3%, AfD picked up strength as Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left government bickered through a series of crises and finally collapsed.

Germany saw a wave of protests a year ago triggered by a report that right-wing extremists met to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship, and that AfD members were present.

But that didn't do long-term poll damage to AfD. It finished second in the European Parliament election in June, and in September, the best-known figure on its hardest-right wing, Björn Höcke, secured the first far-right win in a state election in post-World War II Germany.

AfD went into Sunday's election with renewed confidence and radical language, and doubled its support to 20.8%. Weidel, its first candidate for chancellor, embraced the politically loaded term “remigration” as the party calls for large-scale deportations of people with no legal entitlement to be in Germany.

AfD calls for the immediate lifting of sanctions against Russia and opposes weapons deliveries to Ukraine. It wants Germany to reintroduce a national currency and for the European Union to become a looser “association of European nations,” though it isn't explicitly advocating leaving the 27-nation bloc.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has the party under observation for suspected right-wing extremism. The AfD's branches in three eastern states are designated “proven right-wing extremist” groups. AfD strongly objects to those assessments and rejects any association with the Nazi past. Höcke has appealed two convictions for knowingly using a Nazi slogan at a political event.

Who supports it?

AfD has support across Germany and is represented in all but two of the 16 state legislatures. But the party's biggest stronghold is in the formerly communist and less prosperous east, and it emerged from Sunday's election as the strongest force across that region.

It has a unique ability to seize on issues “that other parties don't handle with this clarity, with this intensity, with this radicalism and this emotionality,” said Wolfgang Schroeder, a political science professor at the Berlin Social Science Center. “And on top of that, it's an internet party and from the beginning used the emotionalizing power of the internet for its own communication — much better than all other German parties together.”

That has helped it to perform strongly among young voters. The party portrays itself as an anti-establishment force at a time of low trust in politicians.

Schroeder described it as “something like an aircraft carrier for resentment and anger.”

Who are its friends abroad?

AfD's rise has coincided with that of far-right parties in many other European countries, including Austria's Freedom Party and the National Rally in France, with which it has plenty of common ground. Orbán this month described Weidel as “ the future of Germany.”

However, it isn't part of those parties' Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament after some tensions before last year's EU election. AfD was thrown out of one of the group's predecessors after its leading candidate at the time, Maximilian Krah, said that not all Nazi SS men “were necessarily criminals.”

Musk, a tech billionaire and close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, has declared that “only the AfD can save Germany.” He held a live chat on X with Weidel and appeared live by video link at an AfD campaign rally.

At that rally, Weidel vowed to “make Germany great again” in an echo of Trump's “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Nine days before the election, Vance met with Weidel after a speech to the Munich Security Conference in which he lectured European leaders about democracy and free speech and declared that “there’s no room for firewalls.” Mainstream German parties' refusal to work with AfD is often referred to as the “firewall.”

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Associated Press journalist Kerstin Sopke contributed to this report.