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Welcome to the Inquiry.
I'm Tanya Beckett.
One question, expert witnesses and an answer.
On the 1st of September, two states in the east of Germany returned local election results, which sent shockwaves across Europe, signifying as they did a key triumph for the far right in the state of Thuringia.
Alternative for Germany, also known as afd, came first, winning about a third of the vote, and in neighbouring Saxony it secured slightly less, coming a close second.
The AfD has been embroiled in controversy since it was founded just over a decade ago as a Eurosceptic party.
More recently, it's attracted attention for its pro Russia stance and staunch anti immigration policy.
The election results in Thuringia represented the first victory in the short history of a party which only entered the German parliament for the first time in 2017.
They also delivered a sharp rebuke to Germany's established political forces.
The three parties in the country's ruling coalition secured less than 15% of the vote between them.
Unwelcome it may have been, but surprising it was not.
The country's leader, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has seen his popularity slide dramatically since national elections three years ago.
This week.
On the inquiry, we're asking can Germany's far right win the country?
Part 1 the roots of the AfD the Alternative for Germany party was founded in 2013 at a time when Europe was still emerging from the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Germany's then chancellor, Angela Merkel, had been at the center of a fierce battle to keep the bloc's single currency, the euro, intact.
A group of academics wanted a platform to voice their concerns that Germany's membership of the euro was costing too much and delivering too little.