The Zeitgeist

Germany votes for a new parliament on February 23. While the center-right Christian Democrats maintain a lead in the polls, the three parties of Olaf Scholz’s outgoing “traffic light” coalition all have suffered reduced support compared to 2021. A result of this volatility is that the next Bundestag could have as many as seven or as few as four parties. In any case, the far-right AfD party is on track for its strongest national showing ever. Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger joins The Zeitgeist to discuss the German political landscape, what is motivating voters, and how the elections will affect transatlantic relations.

Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guests

Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, AGI Non-Resident Senior Fellow

Eric Langenbacher, AGI Senior Fellow; Director, Society, Culture & Politics Program

Transcript

Jeff Rathke

Let me welcome our listeners to this episode of The Zeitgeist. It is January 13, 2025, so this is our first recording in the New Year, and we are glad to have everybody with us. We are just around six weeks away from the German Bundestag election, which is happening on February 23. We thought that was a great opportunity for us to come together and talk about where this election is heading, its significance. Let’s get started. We have with us today my colleague Eric Langenbacher, who is the senior fellow and director of our program for Society, Culture & Politics here at AGI. Good morning, Eric.

Eric Langenbacher

Good morning, Jeff.

Jeff Rathke

And we have with us from Darmstadt, if I got that right, Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, who is a nonresident senior fellow at AGI and who for many years was the foreign editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Hello, Klaus.

Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger

Hello guys across the pond. Good to see you again.

Jeff Rathke

Good to see you, too. Let’s just start with one general observation: this is a crucial moment not only for Germany, but in particular for Germany. We have an early election that was the result of the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition. This election is happening just as the Trump administration, with its increased antagonism and mounting demands toward Europe, will take office. At a time when there is a war still raging almost three years on as Russia tries to subjugate and conquer Ukraine. And at a time for Germany that is particularly precarious because of the difficulties the German economic model is facing, economic stagnation in Germany. This is a time that is going to have huge consequences for Germany, for its European Union partners, and for the transatlantic relationship. Against that backdrop, let’s just start with how things look—and I’ll leave it to Eric or Klaus to run down—but what are we expecting when we look at public opinion, what’s the baseline?

Eric Langenbacher

I’ll start by talking about where we’re at with the polls. Obviously, there are almost daily polls that are coming out these days. I always respect the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll. That came out three days ago on the tenth. It shows the CDU/CSU at about 30 percent, SPD at 14, Greens at 15, FDP and the Left Party and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance at 4 percent, and the AfD at 21 percent. And just to contextualize that a little bit, I think this shows a little bit of weakening on the part of the CDU, a strengthening on the part of the AfD. The AfD was polling well below 20 percent for several weeks, now all the polls have them at 20 percent, maybe even as high as 22 percent. So there seems to be a little bit of strengthening there.