Tumult in the Bundestag

Dear Reader,

We have just witnessed one of the most dramatic weeks in the recent history of German parliamentary democracy.

In the Bundestag, lawmakers gave impassioned speeches warning of a return to the dysfunctionality of the Weimar Republic; parallels to Auschwitz were drawn; enraged centrist politicians accused each other of lies and sexism, or of giving the far-right “a leg up.”

In the streets, thousands gathered for protests outside the CDU party HQ in downtown Berlin. Up and down the country, local CDU offices were attacked with paint bombs. In Hannover, protesters broke into a CDU office and hung a banner from the balcony comparing CDU leader Friedrich Merz to Paul von Hindenburg, the Weimar president who helped Hitler to power.

What happened? In this newsletter I will try to reconstruct the events and explain why they make a major political crisis in the near future a very real possibility.