Shortly before last weekend’s German elections, Elon Musk predicted on his X platform that “it is only a matter of time before AfD wins.”
The extreme right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party, which many observers consider neo-fascist, did not win the 2025 election. But it did win over 10.3 million votes, or 20.8 percent of the vote. In capturing 152 seats in the Bundestag, it is now Germany’s second-largest parliamentary party.
AfD has in recent years become increasingly supportive of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The party opposed sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and has called for an end to military support for Kyiv. It has become increasingly hostile to NATO, calling the alliance detrimental to German interests. When Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Bundestag last June, AfD boycotted his speech. Several news outlets have reported that AfD, or at least some of its members, is on the monetary take from Moscow.
There has long been a pro-Russian streak among a certain portion of the German populace and its leaders. With 1922’s Treaty of Rapallo, Germany became the first major power to recognize the fledgling Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution. Moreover, the treaty provided mutual cooperation between Berlin and Moscow, the first such agreement of its kind. The U.S. did not even recognize the USSR until 11 years later.
In 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, his Nazi counterpart, signed a non-aggression treaty with a secret annex providing for the partition of Poland between their respective countries. It was only when Hitler chose to invade Russia in June 1941 — a decision so foolish that Stalin refused to believe an attack was imminent — that relations between the two states collapsed.
On the other hand, with the Soviets occupying eastern Germany as World War II ended, the so-called German Democratic Republic became Moscow’s staunchest ally among the Warsaw Pact states. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the AfD’s bedrock support continues to come from what had once been East Germany.
It is noteworthy that AfD’s 20.8 percent of the German vote only slightly exceeds the 18.25 percent that the Nazi Party garnered during the 1930 election. The AfD percentage doubled its results from the previous election; the Nazis did even better, having garnered only 2.63 percent in the previous 1928 poll. Yet the trajectory of both parties is eerily similar.
AfD is unlikely to make Hitler’s mistakes, which contributed to his defeat. AfD supports a return to conscription, but that does not necessarily indicate a desire to attack neighboring countries, much less Russia. On the other hand, AfD is not only hostile toward NATO but also favors withdrawal from the European Union.
The logical outcome of such a policy would be even tighter relations with Russia, with the potential for a Russo-German agreement, a la the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, no longer out of the question should AfD come to power. Indeed, should an AfD-led Germany withdraw from NATO, the alliance would surely collapse, as would an EU without Germany. Instead, a German-Russian alliance would fill Europe’s security vacuum and dominate the continent.
While Germany today might not have extraterritorial ambitions, the same could not be said about Putin’s Russia. Should NATO collapse, the Baltic states would once again be vulnerable to Russian occupation, as they were during their brief years of independence from 1918 to 1940. Finland might once again stoke Russia’s appetite for expansion. Poland could again confront hostile states on both its eastern and western borders, and would live under the shadow of yet another partition, which would be the fifth in its history.
For its part, Washington could not ignore a tight rapprochement between Berlin and Moscow, even if it wanted to. The U.S. might find itself subject to crippling tariffs and even sanctions; American exports to Europe, including military sales, could dry up; and European support for American interests outside the continent could collapse under combined German-Russian-Chinese pressure.
Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic leader who is to become Germany’s next chancellor, has vowed to keep the AfD out of the new government. German conservatives during the early 1930s initially opposed the Nazis, then thought they could control Hitler even if he came to power. Accordingly, the German president, retired Gen. Paul von Hindenburg, asked Hitler to form a government in 1933. Within weeks of taking office, Hitler proved von Hindenburg and the conservatives wrong.
Merz will hopefully keep his promise and Musk’s prediction will not materialize. For if it does, the price America might ultimately pay will far exceed any savings that the DOGE is ever likely to unearth in its efforts to pare down the size of America’s federal bureaucracy.
Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.
