Why the AfD Wins

Three weeks before the German state of Sachsen-Anhalt went to the polls to elect a new legislature on September 6, Germany’s leading news magazine, Der Spiegel , ran a cover story with a mug shot of Ulrich Siegmund, lead candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, under the legend “Germany’s Most Dangerous Man.” What made him so dangerous was not evident at first glance. Siegmund is young, untested, a bit of a glad-hander, and in some respects odd. He studied aromachology and marketing at university and takes a particular interest in the influence of smells on consumer behavior. He likes to ride around on old East German motorbikes. But that wasn’t what bothered Der Spiegel . They were more unsettled by the worry that a politician of the extreme right was about to take power in Germany—albeit at a local level—for the first time since Adolf Hitler.