Nearly a century ago, a democracy died in Germany. The cynicism: the party that dismantled it and replaced it with a dictatorship had been elected democratically. Yet, just a few years before seizing power it had only had 2.6 percent of the vote. Its response to this defeat? Fearing further alienation of the middle class, it changed course — toning down the antisemitic propaganda and instead focusing on themes like foreign policy, taking to the streets, stoking terror and fear. The strategy worked: the party became increasingly popular especially among young men. But that was not enough.
Then, a major global economic crisis hit — and the additional hardships and worries of the people enabled the party’s ascent.
One of the party’s defining characteristics was its ability to use the power of the media and propaganda more skillfully than others. Toying with the different groups of voters was something they mastered equally well. Telling industrialists and capitalists one thing while saying something entirely different to farmers‘ associations and workers. This allowed some to convince themselves that the party wasn’t as extreme as others claimed, while others found an outlet for their anger, insecurity, and pent-up frustration. Only one thing was clear to everyone: the party was unmistakably nationalist.
The result of their efforts: less than five years after its disastrous 2.6 percent election result, the NSDAP rose to power in Germany in January 1933. Big industry was now eager to donate and play game, while the former governing parties still believed they could tame the Nazis through political integration. The outgoing Reich Chancellor, von Papen, was even convinced he could back Hitler into a corner ‘until he would squeal’…
Looking at the facts of the time, one thing stands out: even though the NSDAP gained significant ground after the global economic crisis, profiting from public discontent like few other parties, it never won more than 37.3 percent of the vote in the free elections of July 1932. By November of the same year, this result has already dropped to 33.1 percent.
That is still a shocking share, yet it also shows that even a veritable majority of 63-67 percent in the beginning wasn’t enough to save the country from the darkest twelve years of its history. Instead, much of this majority – apart from a few brave exceptions – failed. They went along with it, relativized or waited it out, they just watched or looked away, until it was all too late. In the end, sixty million people lost their lives in the Second World War unleashed by the Nazis. Among them, six million Jewish women, men and children, deported to concentration camps and murdered in an unprecedented atrocity.
This is the guilt and the history of Germany. And yet, eighty years later, it seems poised to elect a far-right nationalist party into government, again.
Once again, with the AfD, there is a party that understands how to play the (now digital) media game better than all others. Its former youth organization has been classified as far-right extremist, and it is deliberately targeting and attracting teenage boys. It tells different stories to different voter groups, at times appearing moderate and seemingly reasonable, and at others radical and provocative. It is a party that speaks of “remigration” instead of deportation, carefully avoiding antisemitic statements so as not to alarm the middle-class electorate. Yet time and again, it reveals its true face: Whether behind closed doors, as in the documented Potsdam meeting, or when Björn Höcke, one of their most successful politicians, muses in his book about seizing power with “well-tempered cruelty”.
I want to state one thing very clearly: I believe that if the AfD were to gain political power and enter government, they would be capable of horrific things. And I believe that, depending on how influential they become, they could shift toward an undemocratic, far-right direction that even some of its own party members can’t fathom at present — while others long for it.
And just as loudly, I want to say this: in light of Germany’s history — but also independently of it — it is our shared duty to stand against antisemitism, against racism and hatred of muslims, doing all that we can to make sure that every human feels safe in Germany, regardless of their origins, skin color or religion. It is our responsibility to ensure that a far-right nationalist party never again comes to power in this country!
Therefore let us not look away, but instead gaze consciously into the abyss of our history. Onto the murderous past, the lives lost at the hands of our ancestors, the continuing sorrow of the victim’s families. Let us revisit works like Schindler’s List and The Passenger, Anne Frank’s diary, or Georg Kreisler’s Weg zur Arbeit. Let us remember our conscience, our responsibility, our integrity, and how one must deal with this past today. And then let us look at the recent interview by AfD leader Alice Weidel, in which she — without the slightest nuance — claimed, that Adolf Hitler was a ‘communist’.
I cannot recall such a grotesque distortion of history from a German political leader, such a cynical attempt at rewriting history. Not only because the Nazis were already rounding up, arresting and murdering countless communists. (Context can be found here, an excellent analysis of the NSDAP’s seizure of power here). Not so long ago such a statement would have ended a political career, and rightfully so. But our society has grown numb. Instead of facing consequences, Alice Weidel was unanimously nominated as the AfD’s candidate for chancellor—business as usual. This is how distorted and poisoned public discourse has become, thanks to the AfD. And it is this that makes the upcoming elections all the more crucial. In a democracy, elections remain the best way to stand up for one’s values—and to push back against a party like the AfD, which has already been classified as right-wing extremist in several federal states by the German Verfassungsschutz.
Normally, one could leave it at this appeal. But unfortunately, today’s world is more complex. It is therefore necessary to examine the context in which Weidel was allowed to spread her lies: on the platform X and through the personal channel of Elon Musk — the richest person on Earth whose power has reached an unprecedented scale. His empire spans Tesla, space programs, AI companies, and control over Twitter/X, extending, allegedly, even to direct contact with Putin.
With his seemingly limitless resources, his radical agenda, and his network of satellites, Musk has what it takes to be a future Bond villain — except that we have no James Bond. Weidel’s and Musk’s conversation was riddled with misinformation, none of which was challenged. Since Trump’s era of “alternative facts”, truth is increasingly fragile while reality seems to have lost its foundation. But perhaps in an age of manipulated images, deepfake videos, AI bots, and right-wing trolling, truth and reality are both simply losing their value and importance.
The problem with this is: When people no longer trust anyone, they inevitably do not distrust any side more than the other. For many, there is no longer a distinction between truth and falsehood, between conspiracy myths and facts, between democratic parties and those pursuing entirely different goals. Or between a sexist, racist, and criminally convicted fraudster and liar like Trump and someone who still possesses a basic sense of decency and integrity. Parties like the AfD and their inside supporters are well aware of this fact.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, his first move was to fire the employees responsible for moderating hate speech and fake news. He then transformed the platform into a right-wing disinformation machine. Beyond supporting Trump and claiming that only the AfD could “save” Germany, he has also interfered in the politics of other countries, including Italy, Brazil, Spain, and the UK – always aligning himself with the far-right, sometimes through massive financial donations. Not to mention his fascist salute at Trump’s inauguration.
To his followers on X, Musk declared: “You are now the media”, while he himself is able to manipulate the platform’s algorithms to prioritize his own posts. Since his acquisition, Twitter’s user numbers have grown steadily — and that momentum continues today. I understand that many people initially stayed on the platform to stand up for truth and facts. But I fear they are ultimately achieving the opposite: by remaining, they are simply legitimizing and sustaining a global tool of the far right. And with it, an owner who has become increasingly erratic and unpredictable.
And Musk is not alone: When the Washington Post apparently planned to endorse Kamala Harris, its owner —Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — blocked it. Mark Zuckerberg, who owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, decided that his platforms would no longer fact-check whether a post contains truth or lies — a move that flung open the floodgates for fake news and right-wing hate propaganda.
Wherever one looks, major tech companies are aligning themselves in alarming ways with right-wing politics. The implications for the future are deeply unsettling. Imagine that another global economic crisis or state of emergency were to hit, accelerating everything into chaos. Back then, after seizing power, the Nazis brought all media under their control, dictating information and propaganda. Today, constitutional protections aim to prevent such an outright takeover — but the digital world offers alternative routes.
A far-right regime backed by tech billionaires would have immense capabilities. Total surveillance would be effortless, enabled by satellites, phone trackers, and other technologies. Artificial intelligence could predict many human decisions. Political opponents could easily be eliminated with a few simple keystrokes. There would be no need to seize control of the media – simply hijacking or shutting down dissenting channels would suffice. Meanwhile, convincingly realistic deepfake videos depicting false events could flood social media, discrediting critics or fabricating events, until a troublesome individual, party, or newspaper is effectively neutralized. Conversely, any lie about their own actions could be just as easily ‘proven’ and disseminated until a population already numbed and disconnected from truth accept it as fact.
Certainly, I am not the only one who thinks of dystopias like 1984 in light of these scenarios. George Orwell wrote the novel shortly after World War II, and much of it has proven eerily prophetic. Terms like ‘social media’ or ‘alternative facts’ could have been lifted straight from its pages, as could the absurd rebranding of Hitler as a communist. Meanwhile, the agendas of many of the world’s richest men remind me of Margaret Atwood’s classic The Handmaid’s Tale and the totalitarian state of Gilead, where women are systematically oppressed. (Not long ago, Mark Zuckerberg openly expressed his desire for ‘more masculine energy’ in companies.)
For all their talk of ‘freedom,’ the right-wing forces of today fear it just as much as they fear free thought, as it always carries an element of doubt – and self-doubt. They do not want complex reasoning, but simplistic slogans. And they certainly do not want an open, free world filled with diverse perspectives, modern ways of life, and genuine equality. Instead they rather wish for a reactionary, patriarchal dungeon in which they can lock all people away. The right-wing movements are not only united by their hatred of liberal democracy and their hostility toward anything alternative, diverse, or simply different. They are also bound together by a toxic conception of masculinity and an ingrained contempt for women – sometimes quiet, sometimes overt.
For a long time, I was comforted by the idea that young people would make the world a better place. However, recent polls and election results show that even the young are increasingly voting for the far-right. And this should come as no surprise: in an era of smartphones, parents have almost no way of filtering or even monitoring the information their children consume. Instead, in nearly every country, we find the same digital offering aimed specifically at young men: the misogynistic ramblings of antifeminists like Andrew Tate, an army of social media bots and trolls, Musk’s manipulative interference, and the right-wing disinformation agenda of politicians like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Not long ago, media outlets like Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, or Tagesschau would have been necessary to spread their lies, which placed a natural limit on their reach. Today, all it takes is control over a handful of social networks to exert global influence and spread lies, just as Weidel demonstrated. It is more urgent than ever to protect ourselves against these distortions. Sadly, neither our democracy nor the EU seems to have the strategies or the tools to do so. And time is clearly running out.
Sometimes, I feel as if we might not make it in the end. That we will see war return to our own lands or slide into a technologically driven right-wing autocracy. Perhaps both will occur. I then try to hold on to what still gives me hope.
Instances such as last year when the streets were full of people protesting the far-right, uniting themselves to stand up for democracy and diversity. Or the words of others; sometimes wrestling with hope, as in this poem, sometimes powerful and angry, as in this song. Or the sheer number of decent, socially conscious and good people out there who can make a difference, whether they realize it or not. Just as after World War II, many of those who entered politics or spoke out had never intended to do so in simpler times. Because it is a sign of intelligence and empathy not to seek power for its own sake. But it is also a sign of responsibility to help when the moment demands it.
And I find hope in the unpredictability of the future. Nothing I have described above has to happen. Things can still very well change course and at any moment. Some institutions have already left X. So too there are exceptions in the tech world. Wikipedia, for example, refuses to run ads and requires verifiable sources in Germany, preventing a right-wing agenda to manipulate its users. (And that is precisely why Musk recently urged his followers to stop donating to this site.) If we are lucky, perhaps one day we will see an app or a trend that will unexpectedly turn everything around. Or long-overdue regulations will arrive in time to protect us and the increasingly fragile concept of truth.
And if not? Then at the very least we can cling to that same stubborn, defiant belief, that Orwell’s 1984 protagonist held onto for so long. In the book Winston is interrogated, tortured, and stripped of everything. The resistance seems futile. Yet, before his will is ultimately broken in the end, Winston holds onto the belief that the surveillance regime of Big Brother would one day fall. When asked under duress why he doesn’t falter, he initially has no answer. Then he says: ‘Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you.’
It is the start of 2025. On the streets, people sip their coffee, tapping at their smartphones. Not far from here, war and suffering rages and rages on. The climate crisis continues its unchecked march toward catastrophe. The prospect of an ever-deepening entanglement between digital power and the far-right is bleak. The endgame for the future has begun, and we are falling behind. But it is not over yet.
That is the state of affairs.
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