In December 1851 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, President of the Second French Republic, staged a coup d'état. A year later, on 2 December 1852, he had himself proclaimed Emperor. Karl Marx, then thirty-three years old and in exile in London, wrote about it in The Eighteenth Brumaire, one of his sharpest political analyses. The text opens with the famous sentence: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
By the tragedy Marx meant the first Napoleon, the man of the French Revolution and of consular power, who smashed the old orders of Europe. By the farce he meant the nephew, Louis Napoleon, who imitated his uncle's gestures without having his historical ground beneath him. But Marx did not claim in the text that the farce was harmless. Louis Napoleon ruled for 18 years. He waged war against Russia, against Austria, against Mexico. In 1870 he threw himself into the Franco-Prussian War, which made possible the founding of the German Empire at Versailles. The farce had its own tragedy. It was not a repetition of the tragedy, but neither was it its resolution — it was a different kind of doom.
If today, in April 2026, we face the question of what is happening to German democracy, then the Marx line is a useful corrective against two widespread readings. The first reading is the direct 1933 analogy — everything that happens is a prelude to a repetition of the Nazi dictatorship. This reading is wrong because it ignores the structural differences between 1929 and 2026. The second reading is the everything-will-be-fine one — today's right-wing populist successes are a sulking phase that will outlive itself. This reading is also wrong, because it ignores the structural erosion. What lies between the two readings is Marx's point: history does not repeat itself. But what comes can have its own tragedy — a farce that is no longer funny but becomes a slowly corroding substance.
This paper examines the German situation in April 2026, with a brief excursus on other countries, and tries to answer whether today's constellation is repetition or a farce variant — and whether the farce variant is more harmless or merely dangerous in a different way.
I. The situation on 30 April 2026
The federal election of 23 February 2025 produced a result that was recognised as a turning point even at the time. The Union (CDU/CSU) received 28.6 per cent — historically one of the lowest results for the CDU/CSU in a federal election. The AfD received 20.8 per cent — the highest result in its history, more than double its 2021 figure. The SPD fell to 16.4 per cent — its lowest result since its founding. The Greens slipped to 11.6 per cent. The FDP, with 4.3 per cent, dropped out of the Bundestag. The BSW, with 4.9 per cent, likewise missed the five per cent threshold. Die Linke came back with 8.8 per cent.
This election ended the "traffic-light" coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP, which had broken apart in November 2024 when Olaf Scholz dismissed his finance minister Christian Lindner. It led to the black-red coalition of the Union and the SPD under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was sworn in on 6 May 2025. As early as March 2025, before the new government took office and with the votes of the outgoing Bundestag, the Union and the SPD, with the support of the Greens, had passed a €500 billion special fund for infrastructure and a loosening of the debt brake. The constitutional amendment was adopted on 21 March 2025 with 513 of 720 votes — above the required two-thirds majority. Defence spending above one per cent of GDP was exempted from the debt brake.
Almost a year later, on 30 April 2026, the balance looks like this. The AfD leads most polls with figures between 26 and 28 per cent — INSA measures 28 per cent, YouGov 27 per cent, and the ZDF Politbarometer of 17 April puts it, at 26 per cent, ahead of the Union for the first time. The Union stands at 23 to 26 per cent — Forsa measures 26, INSA and YouGov 23 to 24. The SPD has fallen to 13 to 14 per cent — its lowest figure since December 2019. The Greens are recovering to 12 to 14 per cent. Die Linke is gaining and reaches 10 to 11 per cent. Friedrich Merz scores minus 1.1 on the politicians' approval scale — the worst rating he has ever received.
In the YouGov survey of April 2026, 79 per cent of eligible voters say they are dissatisfied with the federal government. Only 19 per cent are satisfied. Cooperation between the Union and the SPD is rated poor by 73 per cent — against 18 per cent who rate it good. In August 2025, after the summer recess, the figure already stood at 32 per cent good to 61 per cent poor. The expectation of 51 per cent in early May 2025 that the coalition would work well together has turned into its opposite within a year.
Behind these figures lies a situation that is hard to describe without lapsing into pathos. German democracy is not on the verge of collapse. It works. Elections take place, they are counted, their results are accepted, the Bundestag sits, the Bundesrat sits, the Federal Constitutional Court hands down its rulings. But this functioning democracy produces results with which the majority of its citizens are dissatisfied. It does not steer. It negotiates, it blocks, it compromises — and at the end of the negotiation there is not a solution but a standstill under another name.
II. What the end form of incapacity to decide is
The term "end form of incapacity to decide" needs clarifying. It is not meant to claim that German democracy is incapable of making any decisions. It makes some every day. What it claims is a structural disposition — democracy today is arranged in such a way that it structurally no longer makes the most important strategic decisions it ought to make.
Three categories can be distinguished. First, operational decisions — budgets, legislation, court rulings. These continue to be made, in large numbers, with recognisable routine. Second, tactical decisions — reform of the pension system, of the health system, of tax legislation. These are partly made, with considerable delays, often as stopgaps. Third, strategic decisions — long-term energy supply, defence capability, industrial substance, digital infrastructure, the demographic adjustment of the social systems, the architecture of migration. These are essentially not made.
What stands in place of the strategic decision is a particular kind of procedure. A commission is set up. A special fund is approved. A bridge is built. A pact is signed. A climate target is announced. A strategy is presented. But the structural decision that ought to stand behind the procedure is postponed to the next procedure. The debt brake is loosened without being reformed. The Bundeswehr is given a special fund without its structural deficiency being remedied. Renewables are expanded without a consensus on how the burden is to be shared. Migration is limited without a new architectural consensus being in place. Each individual procedure can be justified. Taken together they form a pattern — strategy is postponed until later because today there is no consensus that would carry it.
This end form did not come about by chance. It has structural causes that have built up over several decades. We call them here the veto mechanics of modern democratic architecture.
III. The veto mechanics — how many have to say yes today
In the 1950s and 1960s the Federal Republic had an architecture in which a determined federal government with a majority in the Bundestag could make a strategic decision. Adenauer decided on joining NATO, Erhard on the social market economy, Brandt on Ostpolitik, Schmidt on the NATO Double-Track Decision, Kohl on German unity. These were strategic decisions that would hardly be possible today. Not because today's politicians are weaker — but because the architecture has changed.
Six veto layers have built up. First, federalism with the Bundesrat as a veto chamber. Anyone who wants a federal legislative reform today that touches on the competences of the Länder needs a majority in the Bundesrat. Since the 1990s this has often been set against the federal government. Even the black-red coalition needs the consent of the Länder, which are governed by a variety of coalitions — black-green, red-green, black-red, red-red, in some cases black-black with the toleration of others.
Second, the European level. Whatever is decided in Berlin must conform to EU law. The supply chain directive, the CSRD, the AI Act, climate legislation — they overlay federal legislation with a layer that is negotiated in Brussels and merely ratified in Berlin. That is not necessarily bad, but it means that strategic sovereignty in key areas no longer lies in Berlin.
Third, the Federal Constitutional Court. In the last twenty years it has revised or stopped several strategic decisions. The Karlsruhe climate ruling of 2021 forced climate legislation to be tightened. The debt brake ruling of 2023 stopped the Climate and Transformation Fund. That was legally justifiable, but politically grave: it meant that a federal government which had adopted a climate package suddenly found itself with empty coffers. Strategic steering is subject to a judicial veto whose logic does not necessarily correspond to political logic.
Fourth, the social partners — trade unions and employers' associations. They negotiate a considerable part of the economic architecture. Anyone who wants a pension or labour market reform has to go through them. From the 1950s to the 1990s that was a productive system. Today it is one in which no side is any longer strong enough to carry a reform, but strong enough to prevent one.
Fifth, the associations. BDI, BDA, DGB, BBE, the Farmers' Association, ADAC, the Tenants' Association, property owners' associations, environmental associations, industry associations — in Germany they have a number and a veto power that do not exist in comparable democracies. Every strategic decision runs into at least fifteen associations that can block or delay parts of it. This is the "corporatist" democracy, especially highly developed in Germany, which helped stabilise the Federal Republic but today leads to paralysis.
Sixth, the media and attention economy. It is the most invisible veto layer. Anyone who wants to make a strategic decision today must reckon with every detail being commented on, scandalised and fragmented in real time. A reform needs twelve months of negotiation, six months for adoption — and during these eighteen months it has to pass the stress test of the outrage industry. This stress test has become harsher over the last ten years because the platforms' algorithms reward outrage.
These six layers work together. Their sum is that a German federal government wishing to make a strategic decision today must convince some twelve to fifteen veto bodies, and in each of them have a majority, or at least no strong minority, against it. In an individual case that is possible. Structurally it is not. Structurally this architectural pattern leads to the end form: whoever decides can no longer decide — he can only negotiate. Whoever negotiates without being able to decide produces standstill under another name.
IV. Three ongoing standstills — debt brake, Bundeswehr, energy transition
In concrete terms. Three examples from the current state of affairs.
First, the debt brake. In the coalition agreement between the Union and the SPD of May 2025, reform of the debt brake is firmly agreed. A commission set up by the federal government began its work in September 2025. In March 2026 Chancellor Merz made clear: "There are a few technical questions we have to clarify in connection with the debt brake. But further borrowing is out of the question. In my assessment, the limit of debt sustainability has already been reached." The budget spokesman of the SPD parliamentary group, Thorsten Rudolph, replied: "It must not happen again that we spend decades cutting our country to pieces, partly because of a wrongly constructed debt brake." The SPD wants a modernised debt rule with an investment booster. The Union wants technical adjustments. Both positions are included in the coalition agreement, but they are in tension. The reform — agreed for the end of 2026 — is today, a year and a half before this deadline, at a point where no agreement is in sight.
Second, the Bundeswehr. The €100 billion special fund of the traffic-light coalition from 2022 was meant to remedy the Bundeswehr's structural deficiencies. With the loosening of the debt brake in March 2025, defence spending above one per cent of GDP was exempted from the debt brake without limit. That is a lot of money. But the money flows into a procurement structure whose pace is well known — procedures that take five to twelve years, through complex EU procurement rules, through national requirements, through distributional politics between the Länder. The structural reform of procurement — which becomes more urgent every day in a situation in which Russia is waging war in Ukraine, with the Iran crisis, with Trump as an unreliable NATO partner — is not happening. Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, has said publicly several times that the Bundeswehr is "not fit for war". Pistorius's statement has had no institutional consequence. It has become the backdrop against which the talking goes on.
Third, the energy transition. It has been formally decided since 2011 — Fukushima, the nuclear phase-out. It has been operationally in motion since 2014 — the energy transition principles. It has been constitutionally guaranteed since 2021 — the Karlsruhe ruling. But today, in April 2026, it is in a situation in which its operational implementation is blocked in several layers at once. Grid expansion is twelve years behind. Storage technologies are insufficient. Industrial electricity prices endanger energy-intensive industry. 80 per cent of the photovoltaic and wind power supply chains depend on China. The social distribution of the costs has not been settled — the fuel discount of April 2026 shows that in the energy crisis the government reaches for short-term measures because the long-term architecture is not in place. What Ullrich Fichtner, in his Spiegel column of 29 April 2026, describes as "der Käse ist gegessen" [the matter is settled] — renewables as a self-propelling success — is, in operational detail, the opposite of self-propelling.
These three standstills are not accidental. They are the typical outcomes of the veto mechanics we described in the previous chapter. Nobody decides them definitively. Nobody can block them definitively. They carry on, at walking pace, with annual adjustments, without a strategic solution.
V. Black-red 2025 — the end point of the centre
The black-red coalition of May 2025 did not come about by chance. It is the result of a constellation in which, after the federal election of 23 February 2025, only a few arithmetically possible coalitions remained. A black-green coalition would have been possible, but had been publicly rejected by Friedrich Merz several times. A Jamaica coalition (black-green-FDP) was ruled out because the FDP had dropped out. A Kenya coalition (black-red-green) would have been possible, but was not pursued further owing to concerns about stability. A black-red coalition was the option left over, arithmetically and politically.
It is also the symbolic terminus of the centrist coalitions that have shaped the Federal Republic over the last two decades. In 2005, 2013 and 2017 the Union and the SPD had already formed grand coalitions — not by choice but out of arithmetical necessity. Each of these grand coalitions weakened the SPD. From 34.2 per cent (2005) to 23.0 per cent (2009) to 25.7 per cent (2013) to 20.5 per cent (2017) to 25.7 per cent (2021) to 16.4 per cent (2025) — and today, one year into black-red, to 13 per cent in the polls. The SPD is devouring itself by governing. The Union is not strong enough to govern on its own. The coalition that remains is so weak that it can no longer carry strategic decisions. The structural tension of black-red is today the end point of the centre as a governing constellation.
What is structural about this constellation can be pinned down in one observation. Friedrich Merz was elected chancellor in 2025 with a party that had 28.6 per cent of the vote. Today, a year later, the largest party in the polls has 27 or 28 per cent — the AfD. The incumbent chancellor's competence rating stands at minus 1.1 — the worst rating he has ever received. Approval of the federal government stands at 19 per cent. The federal government is thus perceived as inadequate by 80 per cent of citizens, while at the same time being the only arithmetically possible majority constellation outside the AfD.
That is the German end form of 2026. A government that nobody really wants governs because no other is possible any more. An opposition that nobody really wants to carry gains because the government no longer satisfies anyone. And a democratic centre that shaped the Federal Republic for decades is shrinking to a narrow strip between the poles that is no longer sufficient for majority governments.
VI. The call for the decide-everything-alone leader
In this constellation a certain voice has grown louder. It is not new — it could already be heard in the 1990s, in the business press in the 2000s, in the pub-table discussions of the 2010s. But today, in April 2026, it is present in a form in which it is no longer a marginal remark but a contribution to public discourse. The voice says: "It can't go on like this. We need someone who takes tough action. We need clarity. We need someone who tells us which way to go."
This voice is the call for the decide-everything-alone leader. It is the direct consequence of the veto mechanics. Anyone who perceives the democratic system as incapable of strategy looks for a corrective that leaps over the vetoes. The corrective can take various forms — the strong chancellor who dictates the guidelines; the directly elected president as in France or the USA; the charismatic leader of a single party with an absolute majority; the referendum as direct democracy; or, in its sharpest form, the authoritarian ruler who abolishes the vetoes.
The AfD serves this voice most effectively. Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla do not come across as crudely as the NSDAP leadership did in the 1920s. They speak the language of the "citizen who no longer understands why nothing works any more". They criticise concrete political failures — the architecture of migration, energy policy, the federal government's position on Ukraine, climate policy. They promise clarity, decisive action, simple connections. What they do not say, but what the logic of their position dictates, is that clarity presupposes the veto mechanism that today blocks democracy. Clarity is achievable only by someone who leaps over the vetoes. Whoever leaps over the vetoes undermines the democratic system. That is not the NSDAP logic of the 1920s. But it is the logic of a post-democratic variant that is finding its own form in the 2020s.
What the AfD offers is not historical fascism. It is a post-democracy with an authoritarian note — elections will continue to take place, parliament will continue to sit, but strategic decisions will increasingly be made by an executive that escapes parliamentary control. Today the model is called "illiberal democracy" — the term comes from Fareed Zakaria in 1997; Viktor Orbán made it current in 2014. It is the form in which democratic institutions are formally preserved while their substance is hollowed out.
This voice is not heard only in the AfD. It is also heard on the populist left — with Sahra Wagenknecht, with the BSW —, in conservative business commentary — in WirtschaftsWoche, in Handelsblatt —, on the intellectual right — in Sezession and Tichys Einblick. It has different accents but a common logic: parliamentary democracy is today structurally incapable of strategy, so another form is needed. The other form is always one in which the veto mechanics are broken — whether through direct election, through referendums, through constitutional reform, through strengthening the executive, through weakening the society of associations.
VII. The AfD at 27 per cent — and what that means structurally
The AfD is not the NSDAP. It has no mass movement in the sense of the SA, it has no paramilitary organisation, it has no alliance with big industrialists as in 1932, it has no concept of the "Volksgemeinschaft" [national community] in the full racist sense. It has far-right currents — above all in the East German state branches around Björn Höcke — but it has no plan for dictatorship in the strict sense. It is a party that has become a permanent actor in the Federal Republic since 2013 and today, thirteen years later, has become the strongest party in the polls.
What it means structurally is something else. It is the party-political answer to the end form of incapacity to decide. It gathers the votes of those who no longer experience the democratic system as capable of action. It is not the solution — but it is the voice of the diagnosis. In Thuringia it reaches 39 per cent, in Saxony-Anhalt 38 per cent, in the East German states as a whole 31.7 per cent. In the West German states, 19.6 per cent. In April 2026 it overtook the Union in the "Sunday question" on federal voting intention at most polling institutes.
What is structural about this: the AfD is today a people's party. It is no longer a protest party that dissolves after three legislative terms. It has established itself institutionally in the Federal Republic. It has parliamentary groups in all state parliaments, in many municipalities, in the Bundestag. It has a party structure, a functionary base, a foundation structure. It cannot be removed from the discourse because today it is part of the architecture of discourse. Whoever maintains the firewall — that is, enters into no coalition with the AfD — has an ever narrower majority outside the AfD. Whoever lets the firewall fall normalises the AfD. Both strategies are already under discussion today.
In September 2026 four state elections take place — Saxony-Anhalt, Lower Saxony, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In Saxony-Anhalt the AfD stands at 38 per cent. It will very probably become the strongest party. If the other parties together do not form a majority capable of governing — and in Saxony-Anhalt, with CDU 25, Linke 13, SPD 6, BSW 5, Greens 4, that is not trivial —, constellations could arise that are without precedent in the history of the Federal Republic. A minority government that acts only with AfD toleration. A CDU–AfD coalition that lets the firewall fall. Die Linke taking part in a coalition that would once have been unthinkable. All of this is thinkable today.
VIII. Excursus — the international picture
The German situation is not isolated. It is part of a global wave that has taken different forms in different countries since around 2010.
In the USA Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025. His first term from 2017 to 2021 was still limited by an institutional brake — Republicans such as John McCain, Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney stood in the way of Trump's most authoritarian initiatives. His second term is set up differently. The Republican Senate is Trump-compliant, the House of Representatives is Trump-compliant, the Supreme Court, with three Trump-appointed justices, has a conservative majority, and Trump comprehensively restructured the federal bureaucracy in his first hundred days. What looked like an anomaly in 2017 had become structural reality by 2025 — and is often discussed as "American Caesarism", that is, as a case in which a president systematically switches off the institutional brakes.
In France Marine Le Pen and the Rassemblement National reached 31.4 per cent in the 2024 European elections — the highest result in their history. In the 2024 parliamentary elections the party was the second-strongest force. A Le Pen presidency in 2027 — Le Pen or Jordan Bardella — is today a realistic possibility. In Italy Giorgia Meloni has governed since 2022 with Fratelli d'Italia, a party with post-fascist roots that has moderated itself in government — but the rightward shift of the Italian frame of discourse is evident. In the Netherlands Geert Wilders won the most votes in the 2023 election and has sat in a coalition since 2024.
In Hungary the situation is more remarkable. Since 2010 — that is, for fifteen years — Viktor Orbán had rebuilt the country into an illiberal democracy, packed the constitutional courts along party lines, structurally controlled the media, regimented the universities. In the global authoritarian wave he was the showcase patriarch — in 2014 Orbán adopted the term "illiberal democracy" as a self-description. In the parliamentary election of 12 April 2026 — eighteen days ago, on the eve of the start of this research — Orbán lost. Péter Magyar and the Tisza party, a movement founded in 2024 by a former Fidesz insider, won 138 of 199 seats, in 93 of 106 constituencies — a constitution-amending majority. Orbán has conceded defeat. Magyar has announced that he will drop the blockade of EU support for Ukraine and restore the rule of law. The EU funds of around €17 billion that have been blocked for years are expected to be released. The Bundestag dealt with the matter on 16 April 2026 in a topical debate — all parliamentary groups except the AfD saw in it an "uprising of democrats against a systematically corrupt, populist and anti-European government", as the SPD member Metin Hakverdi put it. This observation has a significance of its own for the global wave, to which we return at the end of the excursus.
In Argentina Javier Milei has, since December 2023, carried the libertarian revolt into the presidency — as an outsider, with the chainsaw as his symbol, with massive austerity programmes that smashed the traditional party system. In India Narendra Modi has led since 2014, with a Hindu nationalist agenda, with press concentration, with a policy towards minorities that international observers assess as illiberal democracy. In Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled since 2003, in Russia Vladimir Putin since 2000 with a brief Medvedev pause, in China Xi Jinping since 2012; Brazil alternates between Lula and Bolsonaro; in Mexico AMLO and his successor Sheinbaum have a variant of their own. The wave is not the same everywhere, but it is global.
What these examples have in common is not a uniform ideological programme. They are very different actors with different content — Trump and Modi are not united in one programme, Meloni and Milei are ideologically far apart. What they have in common is the form: the claim to be the decide-everything-alone leader who leaps over the veto mechanics. That is the form in demand worldwide today, in different manifestations.
In this situation the Hungarian election of 12 April 2026 is an analytically important corrective. It shows that illiberal democracy, even when it has had fifteen years to rebuild its institutions in its own image, can lose at the ballot box. It shows that Orbán's machine — packing the constitutional court, controlling the media, regimenting the universities, drawing constituency boundaries in Fidesz's favour — was in the end not strong enough to win an election he ought to have won. It shows that the illiberal model, too, has its own points of exhaustion — corruption, economic stagnation, the demographic emigration of the well educated, the erosion of consensus among the authoritarian elites. What was said in the CDU's opening words to the topical debate in the Bundestag — that this was "also a defeat for Putin, for the MAGA movement and for all who want to speak up for illiberal democracy" — is not just campaign rhetoric. It is an analytical observation. Anyone who argues that the authoritarian wave cannot be stopped must explain why it was stopped in Budapest. Anyone who argues that Orbán's machine can manipulate all elections so that the opposition cannot win must explain why precisely this election ended with a constitution-amending majority for the opposition. The answer is not trivial — but it opens a crack in the pessimism that could be glimpsed in the preceding diagnosis.
IX. What 1933 is not and what 2026 is — five differences
At this point Marx's point must be played out. History does not repeat itself in the strict sense. What is happening today is not the repetition of 1933. There are five structural differences that rule out any simple analogy.
First, the economic situation. 1929 to 1932 was the Great Depression, with mass unemployment that in Germany reached about 30 per cent in 1932. In 2026 Germany is in a stagnation of prosperity — not mass unemployment, but erosion of real wages and inflation. The economic despair of 1932 has no counterpart today. Those who vote AfD today are mostly not unemployed but frustrated in a situation they experience as stagnation.
Second, the media landscape. In 1933 Hitler's propaganda was organised through the Volksempfänger [the "people's radio" set], the newsreel and mass rallies — with clear centralisation. In 2026 right-wing populist mobilisation is organised through algorithms — TikTok, Telegram, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Instagram. That is no longer central control but decentralised amplification. It is harder to block, but it is also more fragmented, less coherent, more prone to internal contradictions.
Third, the international situation. In 1933 Germany was in a position in which a military rise was possible — against a weakened France, an uninterested Britain, an isolated USA. In 2026 Germany is embedded in NATO, embedded in the EU, embedded in global supply chains, in a world in which China and the USA act as great powers against which a German Sonderweg [special path] would have no chance. A new "national rise" in the German style is structurally ruled out today — even if someone wanted it.
Fourth, the demographic situation. In 1933 Germany was a young society with a high proportion of men of military age — the precondition for the later mass conscription. In 2026 Germany is an ageing society with a median age of 46; the Bundeswehr today has difficulty recruiting the planned 200,000 soldiers. Mass conscription in the style of the 1930s is demographically impossible. What is possible is internal authoritarian development, not external war.
Fifth, the class structure. In 1933 Germany had a closed proletarian stratum, a middle class in free fall, a rural population in agrarian crisis and a big industry that actively supported Hitler. In 2026 Germany no longer has a closed proletarian stratum — the industrial working class has fallen from 50 per cent (1950) to 17 per cent (2024). There is an eroding middle class, a service stratum, platform precarity. Big industry does not support the AfD — on the contrary, it is worried about its economic positions. The class picture is different.
These five differences are not merely academic. They are the conditions under which a different form of democratic erosion will play out today, if it plays out — not a repetition of Hitler, but a variant whose end point cannot be foreseen today.
X. Where the farce can acquire its own tragedy — three paths
This brings us to Marx's point in its sharpest form. Marx was right that the repetition appears as farce. But the farce has its own tragedy. Three paths can be imagined today along which German democracy could end up in a situation that is not 1933, but structurally produces its own erosion.
First path — the creeping hollowing out of the centre. The black-red coalition breaks up or drags itself on until 2029. In the 2029 federal election the AfD is the strongest party. A firewall coalition of Union, SPD, Greens and Linke can be formed, but has no programmatic coherence and does not survive the legislative term. In 2031 or 2033 the firewall will break — either through a Union decision to tolerate a constellation in one of the Länder, or through direct coalition negotiations. What then begins is not the Nazi dictatorship, but a phase in which the AfD sits in the federal government and its content gradually becomes government policy — with its own logic, without a historical plan, with the consequences for migration, foreign policy, climate policy and constitutional bodies that follow from AfD programmes.
Second path — the sudden crisis as accelerator. An economic, geopolitical or pandemic crisis — an Iran crisis, a Trump–China war, AI disruption, an energy crisis, a wave of migration, a new pandemic — overwhelms the veto mechanics of German democracy at a moment when its legitimacy has already eroded. In this crisis authoritarian emergency solutions appear — emergency decrees, states of emergency, military means used at home, encroachments on press freedom, suspension of Bundesrat majorities through federal emergency rules. What happened in 1933 as a consequence of the Reichstag fire can happen in 2030 as a cyber-security incident. The legal form is different, the structural movement is similar: a crisis becomes the occasion for suspending the veto mechanics — and the suspension is not reversed.
Third path — international synchronisation. Trump's second term has renegotiated the transatlantic bond. Le Pen may become French president in 2027. In the Netherlands, in Italy, in Sweden there are right-wing populist parties in or supporting government. If Germany had a right-wing populist chancellor in 2030, the constellation within the EU would be a different one. The EU as a veto layer would dissolve — not through exit, but through takeover. What national democracies lose in veto power, national governments gain — and precisely these governments would then be the post-democratic ones. The international order, which today still means a democratic bond, would become an authoritarian bond. However — and this is the reservation that the Hungarian election of April 2026 brings with it — this synchronisation is not one-directional. It can also tip in the opposite direction. If Hungary, after fifteen years of Orbán, returns to European democracy in an election with a constitution-amending majority, then the thesis of the unstoppable authoritarian wave has become empirically weaker. Synchronisation can also be democratic synchronisation.
These three paths are not inevitable. They are not even probable. But they are possible. And their possibility is structurally higher today than it was ten years ago. What connects them is not a single shock but the accumulation of small shifts — the creeping hollowing out, the sudden crisis as accelerator, international synchronisation. In none of the three paths is there a "1933" moment in which it becomes clear that democracy is lost. There is only a series of steps, none of which is decisive on its own and which together change the system.
XI. What would be possible as a corrective — three lines
Anyone who shares the diagnosis must face the question of what is to be done. Three lines can be identified in the current discourse.
First line — institutional reform. It calls for a reduction of the veto mechanics. Reform of the Bundesrat, shorter administrative channels, strengthening of the executive within the framework of the constitution, reform of the involvement of associations, loosening of the constitutional court's hold. These are all proposals that have been made over the last twenty years — from the "federalism reform" of 2006 to the "acceleration offensive" of the traffic-light coalition. They were partly implemented, but not to the extent that would break through the end form. Institutional reform is possible, but it has a chicken-and-egg problem: those who would have to push the reform through are precisely the veto mechanics that are to be dismantled.
Second line — radical democratisation. It calls not for less but for more democracy — citizens' assemblies, referendums, local self-government, cooperative forms of ownership, participatory budgeting. It is the line developed in the 2010s by theorists such as David Van Reybrouck and by municipal experiments in Madrid, Reykjavík or Porto Alegre. It has prominent advocates in Germany — Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Robert Habeck, and in an earlier phase also Joschka Fischer. Its advantage is that it confronts post-democracy not with more executive power but with more participation. Its disadvantage is that it is structurally slow. Citizens' assemblies are not fast-track procedures. When the crisis becomes acute, they are not the tool of first choice.
Third line — the restoration of substance. It is the line that resonates again and again in the Megamachine series. The diagnosis here is: the end form of incapacity to decide is not primarily an institutional problem but a consequence of the erosion of substance — the erosion of industrial substance (DMG Mori, Index-Makino, ongoing Chinese negotiations with German Mittelstand companies [the small and medium-sized, often family-owned firms]), the erosion of trade union substance, the erosion of the civic middle class, the erosion of local structures (clubs, churches, cooperatives, foundations). Whoever has substance can negotiate. Whoever has lost substance cannot decide. Restoring substance would not be a constitutional project but a generational project — industrial policy, regional structure, investment in education, cultural policy, a landscape of foundations. It would be slow and unspectacular. But it would be the only line in which democracy would be strengthened not by institutional shifting but by substantive renewal.
Probably a combination of all three lines is needed. Institutional reform alone is too slow and politically blocked. Radical democratisation alone is too slow and cannot respond in crises. Restoration of substance alone is too slow and not directly political. But together — institutional reform as a short-term measure, radical democratisation as medium-term construction, restoration of substance as a long-term project — they could become a democratic strategy that sets something against the end form.
Today, in April 2026, little of such a combined strategy is to be seen. The black-red coalition is working in operational crisis mode, not in strategic renewal. The opposition is fragmented. The intellectual left is torn in the reform debate. The intellectual right falls in with the end-form diagnosis without offering democratic solutions. The economic debate concentrates on short-term measures. What is missing is a broad social movement that agrees on the three lines — and carries them through over twenty years.
XII. Conclusion — history does not repeat itself. But it rhymes.
Mark Twain is credited with the sentence "History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes." It is not entirely certain whether Twain coined the sentence in this form — the source is uncertain. But the sentence itself captures Marx's point in a modern form. History does not repeat itself. It rhymes. What is happening today is not 1933, but it rhymes with 1933 — in tones, in patterns, in structural moments, in the dynamics of democratic self-erosion.
What rhymes: the erosion of the democratic centre. The rise of a right-wing populist party to the strongest force in the polls. Citizens' frustration with the system's inability to make strategic decisions. The call for the decide-everything-alone leader. The weakening of constitutional institutions through routine conflicts. The polarisation of society. The international synchronisation of the authoritarian wave. Economic stagnation as the backdrop.
What does not rhyme: mass unemployment. The paramilitary organisations. The alliance of big industry and dictatorship. The national rise against a weakened Europe. The Volksempfänger centralisation of propaganda. The young demographic situation. The class structure of an industrial mass society. The ideological closedness of fascism.
What does this mean? It means that the tragedy of 1933 will not repeat itself. But it also means that another tragedy is possible — one that does not end with camps and war, but with the creeping hollowing out of democratic substance. A tragedy that does not become recognisable in a single act, but in the accumulation of small steps. A tragedy of the farce — which in its form is not heroic but ridiculous, banal, often administered, often forgotten, often not even perceived as a tragedy.
In The Eighteenth Brumaire Marx coined another sentence that is quoted less often but is just as important: "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living." The tradition of our dead generations — the Federal Republic of the 1950s, the democratic miracle of 1949, the achievements of reunification in 1990 — weighs on us as an obligation. We should not rest on an analogy of repetition that our parents or grandparents might have drawn. Nor should we rest on an analogy of denial that makes our situation harmless.
History does not repeat itself. But the farce that comes instead of the tragedy can have its own tragedy. It is no less dangerous for not being heroic. It is more dangerous, because it is not recognised as a tragedy until it has already happened.
The task facing German democracy today is not to repeat the anti-Nazi struggle. It is the task of breaking through an end form of incapacity to decide without falling into the call for the decide-everything-alone leader. It is the task of renewing democratic structures so that they become capable of strategy again — without giving up the protective rights that the veto mechanics contain. It is a task of differentiation, not of confrontation.
Anyone who takes this task seriously will find themselves neither in the call for the decide-everything-alone leader nor in the automatic optimism that says everything will sort itself out. The task will lie in laborious work, in the restoration of substance over twenty years, in institutional reform beyond the negotiations of pathos, in the radical democratisation of local spaces, in the daily care of that civic middle class which has carried the Federal Republic and its sister republics in Europe for seventy years.
That is the answer to Marx's point. History does not repeat itself. But whoever fails to understand that the farce, too, can have its own tragedy will not recognise the farce for what it is — a form of doom that does not appear loudly but quietly. Whoever listens quietly can still hear it. Whoever waits until it becomes loud has missed the moment in which something else would have been possible.
One last remark. On 12 April 2026 the Tisza party under Péter Magyar won the parliamentary election in Hungary against Viktor Orbán's Fidesz with a constitution-amending majority. This is an event whose analytical significance reaches beyond Hungary. It shows that the fifteen years of Orbán did not lead to an irreversible end point. It shows that even an illiberal democracy can lose at the ballot box if the pressure from citizens becomes great enough and a credible alternative exists. It shows that the thesis of the unstoppable authoritarian wave is too sweeping. There are countercurrents, and they can come as a surprise.
What Hungary teaches is not that everything will be fine. Magyar will not solve all the problems — the energy dependence on Russia remains, the economic situation is difficult, the decades-long entanglement of Fidesz with the administration cannot be unwound within one legislative term. What Hungary teaches is something else: that democratic self-correction has not been abolished, not even where only a few years ago it was considered lost. The farce has its tragedy, but it also has its finiteness. That is not the automatic optimism of the earlier Megamachine papers — it is the sober observation of a concrete counter-example. The task of differentiated observation applies here too: neither to nourish hope artificially nor to drive it away artificially. What happened in Budapest cannot happen one-to-one in Berlin — the situations are different. But it can give those who are working on democratic self-correction in Berlin or Paris or Rome a concrete indication that this work is not in vain.