The New York Times published an analysis arguing that nostalgia and lost pride are a driving emotional force behind support for far-right parties in Europe, illustrated through Germany's AfD. The available evidence package is limited to this single framing claim rather than new factual developments.

This account currently relies on New York Times. We have not independently corroborated it.

How far-right support is explained, whether as nostalgia driven or otherwise, shapes how mainstream parties respond, including whether Germany's postwar 'firewall' against cooperating with the AfD holds. The AfD's record 43.8 percent result in Saxony Anhalt in September 2025 raises the stakes for how European democracies handle a party many still refuse to work with.

Germany's AfD started in 2013 as an anti euro party founded by disaffected conservatives, then pivoted toward anti immigration politics by 2015. It grew from 12.6 percent of the vote in 2017 to 20.8 percent in the February 2025 federal election, becoming the largest opposition party, and won 43.8 percent in a September 2025 Saxony Anhalt state election, its strongest result in any German state. Academic research across Europe has long linked support for populist radical right parties to nostalgia for a perceived lost national status, a pattern researchers call nostalgic deprivation.

1. 2013AfD founded. The Alternative for Germany was founded by disaffected conservatives as a single issue anti euro party opposing Germany's membership in the Eurozone. Source
2. 2015Shift to anti immigration politics. The AfD shifted its priorities from Euroskepticism to opposing immigration, capitalizing on populist and xenophobic attitudes. Source
3. 2017Federal election breakthrough. The AfD won 12.6 percent of the vote and 94 Bundestag seats, becoming Germany's third largest party. Source
4. February 2025Record federal election result. The AfD won 20.8 percent of the vote and 152 seats, becoming Germany's largest opposition party and its most successful far-right party since World War II. Source
5. September 2025Saxony Anhalt state election win. The AfD won 43.8 percent of the vote in Saxony Anhalt, more than double the CDU's share and the party's strongest result in any German state to date. Source

France's National Front, founded 1972. Both movements built political identity around nostalgia for a lost national past, using emotional appeals to historical pride.

Where the comparison breaks down: The National Front's nostalgia was rooted in France's colonial past and Vichy-era history and took over 50 years and rebranding to reach record results, while the AfD's nostalgia centers on postwar German identity and reached major vote shares within roughly a decade of its founding.

• The NYT article's claim that voters feel 'adrift' is not tied to a specific named study in the available evidence.
• It is unclear how the nostalgia framing applies differently across countries with different historical grievances, such as France's colonial nostalgia versus Germany's postwar identity loss.
• Whether Germany's East German post-reunification experience specifically drives AfD nostalgia could not be confirmed in the research notes.

Watch whether Germany's mainstream parties maintain or further erode the postwar 'firewall' against cooperating with the AfD, especially after its record Saxony Anhalt result.

• New York Times: The Fuel That Feeds Europe’s Far Right: Nostalgia and Lost Pride · Headline and summary · 21 September 2026

Read the original reporting at the links above. Our analysis can be wrong and may change as evidence develops.

• Nostalgic deprivation and populism: Evidence from 19 European countries — European Journal of Political Research
• Those were the days: welfare nostalgia and the populist radical right in the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden — Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy
• Key dates in the rise of the French far right — France 24
• Normalising the far right: a warning from Austria — Social Europe