Germany, says Andreas Kalbitz, is a sleeping beauty that is about to be kissed awake. The handsome prince entering her chamber is the Alternative for Germany, a populist hard-right party that has thoroughly disrupted German politics.
“The AfD is the fresh wind that will put this country back on its feet again,” says Mr Kalbitz, to murmurs of approval from the burghers at Höncke’s Old Pub in Königs Wusterhausen, a small town in Brandenburg, who have gathered on a sweltering evening to hear him campaign.
Mr Kalbitz leads the AfD in Brandenburg, the region that surrounds Germany’s capital Berlin. It is a happy hunting-ground for the AfD: if polls are accurate, it could emerge as the most popular party in regional elections on September 1, even beating the left-of-centre Social Democrats which have governed this corner of East Germany since reunification in 1990.
