Like so many other nations, Germany’s recent history has been marked by a rise in populist movements. Parties with strong populist ties, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD – Alternative for Germany) being the most recent example, threaten to disrupt the hard-won social consensus that sought to make sense of and atone for the crimes of Nazi Germany. The development of these mass political movements would seem to indicate that this consensus is fragile.
This lecture will revisit Germany’s past in order to see if pre-1945 German culture provides any clues about the current political situation. And while one must recognize, to use political scientist Sheri Berman’s words, that “populism is not fascism,” we do well to understand the relationship between the two ideas and how the one can lay the groundwork for the other. We will also look at Germany’s history of leftist populism and how it has affected modern-day politics.