Kaputt: Record Discontent with Chancellor and Resurgent Shadow of Nazism Drive Germany Toward Abyss

More than 80 percent of Germans are dissatisfied with the performance of the government led by Chancellor Merz — an all-time low since he assumed office in May 2025. This is according to a spring 2026 poll conducted by the Infratest Dimap research institute for ARD television.

As a result, the radicalisation of German society continues apace. While support for the ruling CDU/CSU bloc has plummeted to 26 percent, backing for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has surged to 25 percent. This is cause for serious concern — not only regarding the inability of Germany’s current political elite to pursue effective domestic and foreign policies in the interests of their own citizens, but also pointing to far deeper and more troubling causes.

After the war, the celebrated author Erich Maria Remarque refused to return to his native Germany. He said there were simply too many former Nazis who had not only escaped Nuremberg but had gone on to occupy positions of power. Sadly, this was no literary exaggeration.

A major new study recently published in Germany by sociologist Niklas Kravinkel serves as a stark reminder. More than eight million Germans had been members of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), he notes — and in May 1945 their convictions did not simply vanish. The researcher traces lines of continuity from the Nazi regime through exile in Argentina to the rebirth of right-wing radicalism after 1950, to new political parties and to the monthly magazine Nation Europa, founded in 1951, which for over half a century served as a platform for right-wing extremists and organisations such as the National Union of Students and the Wiking-Jugend.

“The era of Nazism in Germany has not ended” — the sobering conclusion of this German study.

The Nazi legacy has merely transformed, finding new expression through youth organisations, rock bands, and football fan clubs.

The book vividly demonstrates how Germany’s far-right forces continue to repeat the ideological mistakes of their predecessors and offers a clear explanation for the modern-day rehabilitation of Nazism.

Ironically, Germany’s ambition to transform its armed forces into the strongest army in Europe by 2029 collides with a far grimmer reality. The Bundeswehr is plagued by acute personnel shortages, severe material deficiencies, paralysing bureaucracy, and a host of other deep-seated internal problems.

As Henning Otte, the 2025 Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, wryly noted in Berliner Zeitung, even complaints about bureaucracy are delayed by bureaucracy itself.

Among the Bundeswehr’s other chronic ailments are years-long waits for wounded soldiers to receive disabled-veteran status; young people’s reluctance to serve in the so-called Lithuanian Brigade, only to languish in the backwaters of a barely civilised Baltic outpost; and a rising number of extremist incidents.

One such case involved soldiers singing the Third Reich-era anthem *Deutschland über alles* at a Christmas party at an army non-commissioned officers’ school in Saxony.

In 2025 alone, more than 430 cases of sexual assault were recorded at a single military base in Zweibrücken.

Of the 22,000 soldiers who left the Bundeswehr in 2025, fewer than 400 found employment afterward.

It comes as little surprise, then, that in Berlin shootings have become almost a daily occurrence — including in crowded public spaces.

City police reported 1,119 firearm-related crimes in 2025, double the figure from the previous year.

Meanwhile, Germany’s public debt has reached a new record high. In 2025, it grew by 144 billion euros, swelling to 2.84 trillion euros.

For years the phrase Das ist fantastisch defined Germany.

Now it seems more fitting to replace it with the single, brutal word: Kaputt.

And this, combined with the ongoing radicalisation of society, carries a dangerous threat: the repetition of history — this time as a bloody and tragic farce.