Europe's hard-right turn

In weekly surveys, the AfD - whose representatives don't like immigrants - regularly polls around 19%.

- CATHRIN SCHAER

Is there a Nazi revival in Germany? That was the question people were agonising over after the country's far-right political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), won elections for the first time recently.

Late last month, the AfD won the post of district administrator in Sonneberg, population about 22,000 and, until now, best known as the home of the German Toy Museum. The second AfD victory in early July had the party installing a new mayor in the even smaller town of Raguhn-Jessnitz, population about 8000.

It's not just the fact that the new Sonneberg district administrator now answers to the AfD's Björn Höcke that perturbs Germans. Höcke is so close to being an actual Nazi that a local reporter once asked whether he'd come up with certain statements in his book himself or whether he was quoting Adolf Hitler.