A hurricane session erupted under the glass dome of the Reichstag on Wednesday as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and AfD co-leader Alice Weidel clashed in the Bundestag, exposing the deepening rift in the country’s political landscape.
The confrontation followed the Alternative for Germany’s historic victory in Saxony-Anhalt, where the party won nearly 44 percent of the vote while Merz’s Christian Democrats collapsed to 17.2 percent—their worst result in the eastern state since reunification.
Weidel, speaking first as leader of the largest opposition party, declared that voters had delivered an unmistakable verdict. “In Saxony-Anhalt the voters did not just punish you, they pulverized your party,” she told Merz. The black-red coalition of conservatives and Social Democrats was finished, she said. “Your time is up.” She accused the government of driving Germany toward bankruptcy with record debt and failing on migration, energy, and the economy.
Merz hit back hard. He called the AfD a “destructive force” that would never win an absolute majority anywhere in Germany. “You want to destablize our country,” he charged, pointing to the party’s contempt for democratic institutions, its stance on Russia, and its “remigration” agenda. That policy, Merz said, amounted to “nothing other than an ethnic cleansing in the skilled trades based on skin colour and origin.” One in six skilled workers has a migration background, he noted; implementing AfD plans would leave hospitals, care homes, and restaurants unable to function.
The chamber grew chaotic. AfD lawmakers repeatedly heckled Merz. Bundestag President Julia Klöckner warned them: “We are not on a football pitch.” She threatened expulsions if the disruptions continued.
The exchange laid bare the strain on Germany’s postwar political order. Mainstream parties have long maintained a “firewall” against cooperation with the AfD. After the Saxony-Anhalt result—and with further state elections looming—that firewall faces its stiffest test yet. Merz insisted his government would stay the course on reforms. Weidel predicted her party would soon receive a national governing mandate. The verbal clash under the dome was not just parliamentary theater. It was a snapshot of a system under pressure
