Observers of European politics know Alternative for Germany as a right-wing populist party, probably extreme and certainly friendly to Russia. Less visible from the outside is that the AfD is not an ordinary opposition party that might win an election, govern badly and then be voted out.

The AfD’s goal is to change the fundamental structures of the German state. Though such a transformation is still some distance at the federal level in Berlin, the small eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt already shows what this means in practice. The changes are beginning before the AfD has even taken office.

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