In 1944, as many Nazis realized that the Allied advance into German territory could no longer be stopped, some began to cover up their atrocities. Gas chamber installations were dismantled, documents were burned, and countless pieces of evidence pointing to the mass murder of millions were destroyed.
Their efforts to erase the memory of their crimes ultimately failed. In many cases, the Allies arrived sooner than expected. SS guards abandoned the camps in haste, leaving the last survivors to perish or forcing them onto death marches.
In those final months leading up to Germany’s capitulation on May 8, 1945, not only was the geopolitical relationship between the Soviet Union, Europe, and the United States reshaped for decades to come, but so, too, was the foundation for how the world would remember the horrors of the Nazi regime’s 12-year rule.
Today, 80 years after the liberation of the last concentration camps and the unconditional surrender of the Nazis, this collective memory is once again under attack in Germany.
German politicians note shift in political climate
In a recent interview with the German news outlet Das Parlament, Jens-Christian Wagner, director of the Buchenwald Memorial site, said that he noticed a shift in the “political climate.” Wagner said that, in Buchenwald, memorial trees for those murdered in the concentration camp are repeatedly cut down.
Other sites of Shoah remembrance report similar incidents. At the Sachsenhausen Memorial, swastika graffiti has defaced guest books so frequently that they had to be replaced. Just weeks ago, several German media outlets reported on a group of students who took a photo of themselves at the Auschwitz memorial showing a “white power” hand gesture.
Some memorials report that antisemitic incidents have increased since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
For others, the increase dates back longer and can be traced back to a different denominator: the rise of the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland, AfD.
FOUNDED IN 2013 as a Euroskeptic and economically liberal party, the AfD has undergone significant radicalization in recent years. Its trajectory has shifted from right-wing populism to right-wing extremism. Most recently, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Verfassungsschutz, classified the party as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization, following the completion of a 1,100-page report investigating public statements by party members. The report leaked and is currently circulating among German media.
In a press statement, the Verfassungsschutz wrote: “Specifically, the AfD does not consider German citizens with a history of migration from Muslim countries, for example, to be equal members of the German people as defined by the party in ethnic terms.”
AfD party officials denied the claims in the report and called the Verfassungsschutz “instrumentalized by party politics.”
Although the party often presents itself as an ally of Jews in Germany, its representatives have occasionally attracted attention in the past with antisemitic rhetoric and statements that trivialize the Holocaust. The leader of the AfD parliamentary group in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, once infamously called a Holocaust memorial in Berlin “monument of shame”; co-founder Alexander Gauland – currently holding a parliamentary seat – dubbed the Nazi era “a speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history” and said that Germans “have a right” to be proud of “the merits of German soldiers in two world wars.”
The party’s stance toward Israel remains ambivalent. While some AfD officials have endorsed Germany’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security, known as “Staatsräson,” others have called for a suspension of arms deliveries to Israel amid the ongoing Gaza war.
Not only does the AfD currently hold 151 seats in the Bundestag, accounting for roughly 20% of the parliament, but just a few weeks ago, the party topped a major political opinion poll for the first time.
For quite some years, the party has been particularly popular in the former socialist-ruled states of eastern Germany.
It has also found support beyond Germany’s borders. During the recent federal election campaign, tech entrepreneur and Trump ally Elon Musk publicly called the AfD the “last spark of hope for Germany” and said that Germans focus too much on “past guilt” in an election campaign event with party leader Alice Weidel.
Meanwhile, right-wing extremist crimes in Germany are at a record high since national reporting began in 2001. More than 40,000 incidents were recorded in 2024. Additionally, the authorities recorded more than 5,000 cases of antisemitic crimes in 2024, according to preliminary statistics, with the majority classified as “politically motivated crime on the Right.”
Apart from the AfD, many smaller right-wing extremist groups emerged in the past years, many of them youth groups.
However, there is also opposition to Germany’s current right-wing shift. In the spring of 2024, nationwide protests erupted after reports claimed that AfD Party officials and other right-wing groups secretly met to discuss deportations of millions of immigrants as well as “non-assimilated citizens.” The protests, which saw several hundred thousand people on the streets on some weekends, are considered the largest mass demonstration in the history of reunified Germany.
A key slogan of the movement was “Nie wieder ist jetzt” (“Never again is now”), referring to a wording that is strongly associated with Shoah remembrance.
But millions in Germany appear to hold a different view. Since the domestic intelligence agency’s report on the AfD leaked, debate over a possible party ban has resurfaced. The newly elected German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on German public television that his “view of the party” has changed in light of the recent report. Nevertheless, Merz said on May 6: “You can’t ban ten million AfD voters.”