Opinion | The Specter of Nazism Is Haunting Germany

Since it became clear that the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, will emerge as a dominant force in eastern Germany’s politics after regional elections this September, I’ve been unable to get a photograph out of my mind.

The picture was taken in 1992, during a four-day pogrom in eastern Germany’s port city of Rostock. An estimated 400 right-wing extremists attacked the local immigration center and a housing complex that was home to much of the city’s small Vietnamese community, while a large crowd kept police officers and firefighters at bay. The picture shows a man named Harald Ewert. He’s wearing a German football jersey and a pair of jogging pants. His eyes are glassy and wild. His right arm is stretched out in the Nazi salute.

It’s one of the most iconic photos in contemporary German history, one that captures a period of intense social division and violence. It calls out with special resonance now. Bjorn Höcke, the AfD’s leader in Thuringia, where elections will be held this Sunday, has been convicted twice for his use of Nazi slogans. Between Mr. Ewert, who died in 2006 at the age of 52, and Mr. Höcke, there’s a clear line — proof that the specter of Nazism continues to haunt Germany.

Yet in many ways, the photo is misleading. The rioters who committed acts of violence that day, as the cultural critic Diedrich Diedrichsen wrote, didn’t look like neo-Nazis. Neither did the politicians who used attacks against minorities as a pretext to tighten asylum restrictions. As the far right comes ever closer to power, it’s plain that the focus on its traditional symbols — its slogans and salutes — has proved unsuccessful. By obsessing over images and signs, Germany has missed more dangerous developments beneath the surface.

In truth, there isn’t much difference between the AfD and the other right-wing populist parties that have spread across Europe in recent years. Like Law and Justice in Poland, Fidesz in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece, the AfD relies on a toxic combination of xenophobia, militarism and nostalgia to win votes. But this is Germany, the last country anyone wants to make great again.

Germany’s other political parties, unable to agree on much over the past few years, have accepted that you can’t let a party that flirts with fascism come to power and ensured the AfD’s isolation. In a country less attuned to the possibility of a fascist takeover, the party — with its disciplined organization and skilled use of the media — would almost certainly have amassed substantial political power over the past decade. Even now, the amount of concrete political power the AfD stands to gain next month is unclear. A shift of a few percentage points in the results could well make the difference between another coalition of established centrist parties and a state government led by far-right extremists.