Competing over German Identity: Conservatives and the Nonvisible Far Right

Abstract

Historical legacy makes alarmism the natural companion of scholarly efforts to map the electoral trajectory of the German Far Right. But a quick glance at the postwar German electoral landscape suggests no reason for alarm: The German Far Right has never managed to gain national legislative representation. This contrasts with the striking advances of the Far Right in Austria, a country that shares Germany's Nazi past; enjoys similar levels of socioeconomic development; has an analogous political party and media system; and has a comparable culture. With the Austrian experience in mind, then, the first task of this chapter is to account for the noticeable failure of the German Far Right. Given the advance of the Far Right elsewhere in Europe, it is tempting to attribute this failure to the traumas and memories of National Socialism and their impact on German political culture. But a closer examination of German politics reveals the intense partisan competition over German history and identity, which is concealed by arguments about German exceptionalism. Moreover, it exposes a small but noticeable variation in Far Right performance since the late 1970s, which some observers of German politics tend to miss. The second and more tedious task of this chapter is to account for this variation by analyzing, as before, how party and media behavior has affected the electoral fortunes of the Far Right. Investigating the electoral fortunes of the German Far Right necessitates a departure from conventional explanations for Far Right performance.