Putin’s Allies in the AfD Now Leading German Polls
The pro-Russian Alternative for Germany (AfD) has, for the first time, overtaken Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU in the polls. According to INSA, the AfD now leads the Union.
As the party gains momentum, Germany’s foreign policy risks tilting toward Moscow, diverging from the EU’s unified stance, and complicating its role in NATO and the collective response to Russian aggression.
Alles für Deutschland (‘Everything for Germany’) was once a Nazi rallying cry. Decades later, Björn Höcke, a leading figure in the AfD, revived it at party rallies, which led to his prosecution.
In August last year, the slogan resurfaced at events with co-leader Alice Weidel, this time with a minor twist: Alice für Deutschland.
Alice Weidel: Putin’s Puppet in Berlin
Alice Weidel, co-chair of the AfD, is the clearest example of this pro-Russian influence. She has cultivated a reputation for her Kremlin-friendly stance.
Weidel has never condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She consistently calls for closer German-Russian ties and the lifting of sanctions on Moscow. In an interview with Bild, she argued for “good relations” with Russia, framing Western sanctions as “harmful to Germany’s interests.”
Her rhetoric extends to opposing military aid for Ukraine and backing energy projects like the Nord Stream pipeline. She even attacked Germany’s plan to send Patriot missiles to protect civilians as Russian strikes destroy Ukrainian cities, killing entire families, including children.
In February 2025, Weidel visited Budapest, where Orbán hailed the AfD as “the future of Germany.” Weidel, in turn, praised Orbán as a “beacon of freedom,” signaling a shared nationalist, anti-EU agenda.
Germany divided by the Berlin Wall
Germany has experienced Russian domination before. In 1961, the Berlin Wall rose — not to protect, but to imprison. Guards were ordered to shoot anyone trying to escape. They claimed 327 lives, according to the Berlin study. About half of the victims were aged 18-25.
For 28 years, the wall reminded the world that Moscow’s empire could only survive by caging its people.
East Germany was a Soviet prison camp disguised as a state, where even teenagers like Peter Fechter bled to death in front of Western eyes because they dared to climb the wall.
Families were torn apart, careers destroyed, and dreams of liberty crushed. Yet people risked everything, slipping through sewers and tunnels, rising in hot-air balloons, or hiding beneath car seats for a chance to taste freedom.
The historic city of Königsberg, the heart of East Prussia, was seized by the Red Army in 1945. Its German population was expelled, the city renamed Kaliningrad, and the region militarized. While the Berlin Wall fell with the Soviet Union’s collapse, Kaliningrad remains a Russian exclave on NATO’s doorstep, heavily armed to this day.
As history has shown, allowing outside powers to exploit internal divisions can come at a devastating cost. The Wall’s memory should serve as a warning: when political forces in Germany today flirt with Moscow’s agenda, it’s not abstract politics. It’s a threat to the individual liberties generations fought to reclaim.
The AfD’s rise is a reminder that tyranny may not always appear as soldiers and barbed wire. Sometimes, it comes disguised in democratic institutions, propaganda, and pro-Russian politicians echoing Kremlin talking points.
The Economist warns: the AfD is dividing the country and those divisions are exactly what Moscow wants.
