CDU Destroying Itself Without AfD’s Help

The Christian Democratic Union is destroying itself from within, and it needs no help from the Alternative for Germany to complete the process, according to a scathing new analysis of the party’s self-sabotaging strategy under Friedrich Merz.

According to Nius, the CDU regularly invokes an old statement by AfD politician Maximilian Krah, who once admitted that the destruction of the CDU was his goal. When a television journalist asked nearly three years ago whether the destruction of the CDU was indeed his objective, Krah answered affirmatively. The CDU has since used this statement to justify its absolute refusal to cooperate with the AfD, erecting what it calls a firewall against the right-wing party.

But the irony is stark. If the CDU’s logic were applied consistently, the party would have to refuse cooperation with itself. No political force is pursuing the destruction of the CDU more devotedly than the CDU under its current leadership.

Compromise Means Moving Left

The CDU does not merely govern in coalition with left-wing parties. It increasingly sounds like them. Friedrich Merz, the party leader, never misses an opportunity to praise compromise, as Nius reports. Yet these are always compromises with the left, whether with the Social Democrats or the Greens.

When Merz praises compromise, he is praising the leftward drift of his own party. He wants nothing to do with the right. The alleged destructive intent of the AfD is meant to justify the firewall. But ultimately, every party wishes its competitors did not exist. Merz, however, does not see the SPD as a competitor but as a partner, while viewing the AfD as an enemy.

For Merz, the entire AfD belongs to the extremist camp. This represents an enormous escalation, born of fear and panic. Merz reaches for rhetorical flamethrowers because his party is caught in a downward spiral. He wants to cling to his Social Democratic coalition partner at all costs. The choice he presents is stark: SPD or extremism. With this false alternative, Merz is cementing the CDU’s decline.

Poll Numbers Tell a Devastating Story

The electoral mathematics are brutal. In October 2025, when Merz claimed to prove that the most successful party of the political center would not be destroyed by the AfD, the Union trailed the AfD by two percentage points. Today, according to Nius, that gap has widened to seven points. The chasm grows wider by the week.

It is not within the power of the CDU to decide to whom it leaves the country, the analysis notes. Germany does not belong to the CDU. The people have a right to be governed by the right if they have voted for the right. Merz believes he can control voters through incantations, and his mantra remains that one must never cooperate with a party that wants to destroy the CDU.

Abandoning Conservative Principles

The CDU now embraces policies that sound lifted from socialist talking points. Union deputy parliamentary leader Mathias Middelberg says the party is pleased when heirs are properly made to pay. The CDU also wants to access private homes to reduce state nursing costs, in the socialist manner. Fellow deputy leader Albert Stegemann argues in class-warfare tones that there must be no program to protect inheritances at the expense of the general public. The Union is even prepared to raise taxes.

Back in October, there were still memories of the CDU’s election program. Now the party has thrown its own platform in the trash while elevating the firewall against the AfD to its sole remaining dogma.

A party that discards its own program and makes the firewall its last article of faith is pursuing the destruction of the CDU by the CDU’s own means. The question is no longer whether outside forces will destroy the party, but how quickly it will complete the task itself.

With information from Nius