Former Federal President Joachim Gauck has rejected a proposed ban on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Speaking at an event for the “Rheinische Post”, he warned, “I do not want to be stuck in a five‑year waiting process like what is happening in Karlsruhe, while the AfD keeps gathering votes from people who feel the party is being treated unfairly”.
Gauck urged that the AfD be confronted not only politically but also as a citizen society, adding that “one should not simply endure every nonsense without questioning it”. He said that Germany’s split response to the AfD can be traced back to the different historical experiences of East and West.
“West Germany only had twelve years of dictatorship, yet there were still enough people who knew how democracy works and who could live responsibly”. In contrast, the thirty‑six years of East Germany’s authoritarian rule eroded civic engagement. The former president explained that the longer the state forces people into compliance, the deeper the loss of civil society. He illustrated this with statistics on club membership and active citizens across the country, noting that the uncertainty of reunification only added to the weakening.
Despite the East’s strong AfD showing, he acknowledged that there are western constituencies with high AfD support and that populist forces are gaining ground in Switzerland and Scandinavia as well. “Populism thrives on the perceived failure of elected politicians – when a democratically chosen government is seen as indecisive for too long” Gauck said. He further pointed to the intensity of social change and crises as underlying drivers of this phenomenon.