You know something is up when friends from Dublin – generally not that interested in things Mitteleuropean – are texting and wondering about the minutiae of German provincial politics. Last Sunday was one of these days and, following a short family cycle for coffee and ice-cream, a cascade of news rained onto our screens from around 6pm. The success of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the small federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, about an hour and a half southwest of Berlin, is bad news for Germany, for Europe, and potentially for democracy. We have actually been here – more…

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