It was late at night, exactly a month before the February 23rd election, when Friedrich Merz told a group of party colleagues in confidence that he had made a historic decision.
The country had been shaken by a horrific attack the day before, when an Afghan asylum seeker entered a park in the wealthy southern German state of Bavaria and killed a two-year-old boy and the man who was caring for him with a kitchen knife.
Merz, the future German chancellor, is, according to those who know him well, a person who is equally prone to being led by his own emotional reaction at times as by cold political calculation. That night he showed that he is capable of both at the same time.
In private, he told colleagues that the killings were the last straw. Over the past few weeks, support for his party had begun to decline as the popularity of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) approached unprecedented levels. But he was now determined to do something. Within hours of the attacks, he decided to take a radical course of action that would transform the final weeks of the election campaign, propel him to victory, and change Germany itself.
"Merc is a person who can be emotionally moved," Serap Giler, a conservative MP who Merc called immediately after the murders, told Politiko. "This attack, especially because the target was a child, really hit him."
This report is based on interviews in the final weeks of the German campaign with more than a dozen politicians and officials from across the political spectrum, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity so that Politico could get the most candid account possible of the decisions, risks and mistakes that gave Merck the keys to the chancellor's office in Europe's largest country.
"I do not care"
The Aschaffenburg attack lit a fuse for Merz. He had long believed that his conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) needed to take a tougher stance on migration, but the shocking nature of the attack, combined with the AfD's growing support, convinced him that it was now or never.
"I don't care who goes down that path politically," he told reporters the day after the attack, alluding to the criticism he knew would come for embracing his populist rival's rhetoric. He looked as if he were at a funeral, choosing to wear a black suit and tie.
In a late-night phone call with CDU members, he explained his new strategy, which was as historic and radical as it was controversial. His interlocutors hung on his every word. They thought he sounded emotional and agitated. He said he would push tough immigration bills through parliament in the 30 days before the election and, dramatically, he would not care if it meant depending on the votes of the far right for the first time in Germany’s post-war history.
It was a gamble of seismic proportions. Sources familiar with the matter said that he had hoped that by projecting strength in the face of tragedy, he would stem the tide of votes for his anti-immigration rivals. But the risk of backlash was enormous; he knew that some centrist voters might be so disgusted that they would turn to other mainstream parties; and, more critically, he knew that the move could be seen as de-stigmatizing the AfD and boosting support for the party.
Demolition of the post-war protective wall
The decision completely changed the course of the election campaign.
Literally overnight, the attention of all parties shifted to the issue of migration, as well as to the challenge that Merz's move posed to what Germans call the "brandmauer," a protective wall, which had until then prevented traditional parties from formally or informally cooperating with the far right.
Suddenly, the issues that were expected to dominate election discussions disappeared: how to revive a failing country, how to modernize the military, or how to deal with the war in Ukraine.
And it all seemed to work in Merc's favor.
On Sunday, Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance won the election with almost 29 percent of the vote. The risk paid off. Only a few votes prevented a new populist left, Sarah Wagenknecht’s Alliance party, from entering parliament, making it much harder to form a stable coalition. Still, with the AfD in second place with just over 20 percent of the vote, effectively doubling its support from 2021, it was a complicated night for the new chancellor, and the result underscored the tough times ahead.
Solingen, Magdeburg, Ašafenburg
For months before the election, Merck's conservative alliance looked like the favorite to win. It had consistently led the polls since spring 2022, capitalizing on voters' dissatisfaction with the three-party ruling coalition under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Support for Scholz and his center-left Social Democrats fell sharply during the government's term. Internal conflicts between the SPD, the Greens, and the liberal Free Democrats finally escalated in November, when the coalition collapsed, resulting in early elections.
Aschaffenburg, the latest in a series of high-profile crimes committed by foreign nationals living in Germany, has rocked the campaign.
In December, a Saudi man killed six people and injured 300 when he drove a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, and in a knife attack in the western German city of Solingen last August, three people were killed and eight were injured.
The names of the cities where the attacks took place have become political shorthand for obvious proof that Germany's migration policy has failed: Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg.
Mercz's change of direction was not purely emotional. Conservative politicians told Politiko that it was part of a deliberate effort to win back voters who had drifted to the far right.
In the days after Aschaffenburg, a lawmaker from Merz's conservative alliance told Politico that the party watched in disbelief as its support in the polls fell from 35 percent in early December to just 28 percent in late January. Things were only going one way.
"People have the impression that nothing is going to change, that they are signing up for the same old policies," the MP said. "The migration issue is, hopefully, a way to change that."
When his proposals reached parliament in the last week of January, Merck walked a political tightrope. While insisting that his party would never enter a coalition with the AfD, maintaining a firewall, he argued that the situation demanded urgent action.
"Yes, it is possible that the AfD will for the first time make it possible to pass the necessary law," Merck said during a debate in parliament. But "we are faced with a choice: to continue to watch helplessly as our citizens are threatened, injured and killed," or "to stand up and do what is unequivocally necessary in this situation."
That's why, despite the negative reaction in the media and from left-wing parties, the CDU almost unanimously stood behind Merck. Even a rare public criticism from former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said she considered Merck's decision "wrong", did not prompt criticism within the party.
Speaking to Politico at the time, Jürgen Hart, a CDU MP, said the move would help ensure that traditional parties stop losing votes to the AfD, and potentially even win them back.
"We made sure that no one else turned to the AfD," he said, "because within the democratic parties they can find a political answer to their greatest fears."
Integrating the far right into the mainstream
The AfD watched with delight as the debate about Aschaffenburg and the security wall unfolded. Finally, the traditional parties were talking about exactly what they wanted: about themselves and migration.
"If there was a key moment in the campaign, it could be said that it was the fact that reality shattered the narrative of our rivals," one AfD lawmaker said on the eve of the election. "A lot of what we in our party had been pointing out from the very beginning... suddenly turned out to be true."
Under the leadership of Alice Weidel, a former economist with blonde hair and a stern expression, who has successfully led an increasingly radical party, the AfD has already made great strides towards solidifying its place in German politics.
That growing dominance of the debate at home coincided with growing acceptance abroad.
After Elon Musk's enthusiastic endorsement late last year, senior AfD officials attended Trump's inauguration in Washington as a sign that his administration is actively seeking to strengthen the far right in Germany.
"Our relationship with our foreign friends, both with our European neighbors and with the United States, as well as with China and Russia, has never been worse," Weidel said in early February. "As the second-strongest power in Germany, my primary task will be to help improve that."
Her team requested a meeting with nationalist, pro-Russian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of the election, in her first official meeting with a European leader.
"The AfD is not a party that prime ministers in all European countries welcome with open arms, but it is high time we changed that," Orban said after meeting with Weidel at his official residence.
Negative reaction
However, other parties saw Merz's willingness to pass legislation with the help of the AfD as directly contradicting a promise he made in November.
The Social Democrats and the Greens, who have been in power together since 2021, realized that this could improve their chances, using the claim in their attacks that Merco cannot be trusted.
However, any momentum was short-lived. Within the SPD, Scholz's position was so fragile that some members considered replacing him with a more popular colleague, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Behind the scenes, they were even more critical, and several candidates refused to put up posters with Scholz's picture.
The Greens have also begun to directly call out Merz for his taboo-breaking move. New election posters have portrayed Green leader Robert Habek as a credible alternative to Merz.
But, to both parties' surprise, the real winner was the Left Party, whose young leader Heidi Reichinek criticized Merck for "deliberately" collaborating with the AfD, and whose speech in parliament went viral on TikTok and Instagram. The party saw its support surge in the final stages of the campaign, reaching almost 9 percent of the vote, a result they were delighted with.
"Merz's approach to the migration issue in the Bundestag, together with the AfD, has brought the Left new supporters," said pollster Manfred Gilner. "In this respect, the Left is truly a winner in the final phase of the election campaign."
This has been particularly frustrating for the Greens, who were previously the preferred choice of young, progressive voters. The left has “been more successful in attracting those who find the migration debate absurd and frightening,” complained one Green MP.
American double whammy
While German parties focused on migration and the fire barrier, exclusively domestic issues, the new administration in Washington was preparing to release several bombastic statements.
At the Munich Security Conference, just nine days before the election, US Vice President J.D. Vance gave a scathing speech condemning European democracies. Referring to another deadly attack that had taken place in Munich the day before, he condemned European leaders for opening "the floodgates for millions of immigrants without any checks."
The speech followed Trump's announcement that he planned to initiate peace talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, bypassing Ukrainian and European leaders, and with concessions to Moscow before the talks even begin.
Despite the seriousness of these events and their potential consequences for Germany, foreign policy has appeared to be the last issue on the electoral path. Green and CDU officials told Politiko that downplaying the issue was a conscious decision to win votes and begin positioning for coalition talks.
It was not until the last day of the campaign that foreign policy reached the top of the agenda.
Two days before the election, Merck warned that Europe could no longer count on American protection.
"As in 1949, we are faced with nothing less and nothing more than the restoration of the Federal Republic of Germany," Merz wrote on Friday.
It was a statement that foreshadowed the challenges ahead.
"We can truly achieve independence from the United States," he said shortly after declaring victory on Sunday night. After Trump's remarks, "it is clear that Americans, at least this section of Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe."
After Merz's risky move after the Aschaffenburg attack, migration became a topic that gave new momentum to the campaign. But the new government will have a hard time ignoring the geopolitical upheavals that have occurred while everyone looked away.
Translation: NB
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