About everyday right-wing extremism and the creeping normalization

I often think about that tram ride in Leipzig seven years ago. I was on my way home. Rush hour traffic, the tram was full. In front of me sat two older women, white hair, practical short hairstyles, beige rain jackets. The traffic light at the corner of Eisenbahnstrasse and Hermann-Liebmann-Strasse turned green. The tram started and slowed down.

At the pedestrian traffic light, a stressed mother pulled her two small, cocky children off the road at the last moment. It's a shame, said one lady to the other, two less wouldn't have been a loss, there are far too many of them anyway. Her white-haired friend nodded. Of course it was clear who she meant by “one of them”. The mother and her two children had black hair and brown eyes.

The tram started again and while I was still thinking about what I should say to these two ladies, they had already gotten up and got off at the next stop. “Is it still okay?!” seemed too weak to me in view of their total moral failure, the wild insults that also ran through my head seemed too helpless, and arguing against it along the lines of “Why you shouldn’t wish death on anyone” was absurd. Of course, you shouldn't wish death on anyone. What was there to discuss? And beyond that: What went wrong that two old ladies, chattering casually, said such things in the semi-public space of the tram?

I could add another anecdote to this: the Nazi who invaded a student bar in Leipzig and wanted to pay for his beer with Reichsmarks. Two more old ladies at a tram stop in Chemnitz, talking about how the work-shy people should be sent back to the quarry like before. The visitors to a festival in Chemnitz who stood in front of an art installation in an allotment garden and spoke of “degenerate art”.

The two neo-Nazis in Weimar who, with my packed Dürüm in their hand, insulted me as a “doner kebab eater” and became increasingly angry, so I jumped off the bus at the next stop and walked the rest of the way to the train station. You could supplement my anecdotes with a few current figures, data and facts: The Office for the Protection of the Constitution counts 36,951 right-wing extremist criminal and violent crimes in 2025 alone. You don't even want to imagine the number of unreported cases.

And it's just the crimes, a lot of right-wing extremist talk is known to be covered by freedom of expression. On average, there will be over 101 crimes per day in 2025. This is an increase of around 8.9 percent compared to the previous year. And in the election in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD won 43.8 percent. 43.8 percent of voters chose a right-wing extremist party. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania it was 38.2 percent and in Berlin 16.3 percent.

I was born in Munich and grew up in Upper Bavaria. I saw my first neo-Nazis as a teenager, it must have been around 2010. The NPD had registered a rally in Freising, the city where I went to school. Of course my friends and I went. And we weren't the only ones, the market place was full. “Freising is colorful instead of brown” was written on self-made signs. We waited quite a while. There was a barrier and a few police officers. And when the neo-Nazis finally showed up, I had to laugh. That was all they had to offer? Ten Hanseln dressed in black with stupid black-white-red flags.

When I went home I was in good spirits. Of course, I also knew then that the world was not as okay as it seemed to me that day. My father was once insulted at work by a man who said, “People like you should be sent to the gas station.” When he told those around him that he was going to file a complaint, no one wanted to hear anything. But these things were not the order of the day. Right-wing rock CDs were not distributed at my school. Right-wing extremism didn't seem to be something to worry about in Upper Bavaria in the noughties.

In 2011, the NSU's actions became known. That changed the perspective. A few years later the AfD was founded. In 2017 she entered the Bundestag. An AfD election event took place on a farm in the neighboring town where I grew up and where all sorts of celebrations were held, from the kindergarten summer party to the golden wedding anniversary. One heard of this or that who now voted for the AfD and had even become a member. The customer in the local stationery store who loudly railed against refugees. The craftsman who yelled at the shipping company employee because he spoke German with an accent. Did you just notice these things more now than before? Or did people now feel empowered to give free rein to all their resentments and authoritarian desires?

Needless to say, the AfD still doesn't have a majority in Bavaria, and so many people didn't vote for the AfD. So many people didn't vote for the AfD, it was said again after the elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Of course, but what do you mean by that? Provide comfort? According to the motto: Now all these illustrious right-wing extremists and their illustrious right-wing extremist employees are moving into the state parliaments and possibly taking over the government in Saxony-Anhalt, but hey, don't be sad, there were a lot of people against it.

Since its founding, the party has become increasingly radicalized. What was shocking ten years ago is no longer shocking today. Or it shocks so much that in the end nothing shocks anymore. In the meantime, people have gotten used to the calls for remigration and have learned terms such as “foreign culture,” “repopulation,” and “foreign infiltration.” Shift to the right, some say, it has always been there, others. Both are probably right. But something has shifted.

What was or seemed to be a marginal phenomenon for a long time has moved to the center. The Federal Republic's free-democratic basic order is no longer a consensus. These days it feels a little like that tram ride in Leipzig seven years ago. You want to say something back, but “Is it still okay?!” seems too weak, wild insults are helpless and the arguments against it along the lines of “why you shouldn’t join forces with right-wing extremists” are absurd. Of course you shouldn't join forces with right-wing extremists. But perhaps, if you don't want to initiate a ban procedure, in the end you'll have nothing else to say other than that.