Could the far right come to power again in Germany?

With Alternative für Deutschland now consistently polling ahead of the governing party, the right-wing eurosceptics are set to double their seats in the European Parliament in June. But could a manifesto call for the forced repatriation of millions of migrants pave the way for the unthinkable to happen in next year’s general election, ask Mark Hollingsworth and Thibault Krause

AfD’s regional leader Björn Höcke, a charismatic 52-year-old former history teacher, is on course to be the next governor of Thuringia (AP)

As a secret location to plot the political future of Germany, Hotel Landhaus Adlon was not the most diplomatic and sensitive choice. Overlooking Lake Lehnitz in Potsdam, near Berlin, the hotel is a mere 20-minute drive from the site of the infamous Wannsee Conference in 1942, where Reinhard Heydrich and other high-ranking Nazi officials discussed the “Jewish question”, ultimately leading to the Holocaust.

The participants – leading members of the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) – clearly had not realised the chilling parallels. This meeting last November was organised by two businessmen and attended by Roland Hartwig, aide to the AfD leader, Ulrich Siegmund, a regional parliamentary leader, two Austrian neo-Nazi activists, and even two members of the conservative but mainstream Christian Democratic Party.

Widespread forced remigration was at the top of the agenda that grey Saturday morning. They discussed deporting not only refugees or asylum seekers but also those not considered “true ethnic Germans”, including well-integrated second or third-generation German citizens with foreign heritage.