The far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is riding a populist wave across Europe’s largest economy.
According to polls conducted this month, the AfD has become the strongest party in Thuringia, a former state of the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR). In Saxony, another former GDR state, the party finished a very close second behind the CDU.
The Guardian’s Berlin correspondent, Deborah Cole, explains how the AfD has risen from its eurosceptic origins to a party that is ‘managing to set the agenda’ in German politics