RIGHT TO MARCH: At a protest against Berlin’s refugee policy in 2015, Petry holds a banner reading “Asylum Needs Limits.”
JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
WHEN DONALD TRUMP BECAME THE 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, MOST GERMANS SEEMED TO BE IN MOURNING. THE COUNTRY’S VICE CHANCELLOR, SIGMAR GABRIEL, WARNED OF “A ROUGH RIDE” AHEAD; A WEEK LATER, CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL LECTURED TRUMP ON THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS, TELLING HIM THAT THE FIGHT AGAINST MILITANTS’ ATTACKS DOES NOT JUSTIFY BANNING REFUGEES FLEEING WAR AND PERSECUTION.
But in the dawn of the Trump era, one political party formerly on the fringes of German society has been glowing: the anti-immigrant, anti-EU Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).