German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s claim that the Alternative for Germany party’s flagship migration policy amounts to “ethnic cleansing” is drawing scrutiny not just from the AfD itself but from academic historians, including at least one member of Merz’s own Christian Democratic Union.
According to reporting by Bild cited by Breitbart News, the chancellor’s language — delivered Wednesday in the German Parliament — is being questioned on factual grounds by scholars who study the history of mass violence and population displacement.
Merz told lawmakers that the AfD’s “remigration” policy, which calls for the removal of migrants who are in Germany illegally, is “nothing other than ethnic cleansing based on skin color and origin.” He also argued that carrying out such deportations would cause German society to collapse, and directed a pointed message at AfD members in the chamber: “You are part of the problem we have in Germany — and we will resist that with everything at our disposal.”
The phrase carries heavy historical freight in Germany, and the accusation quickly became a flashpoint in the country’s already heated political debate.
Historians Say the Label Doesn’t Fit
Andreas Rödder, a professor of modern history at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and himself a CDU member, told Bild that while the AfD’s migration positions are fair game for criticism, the ethnic cleansing comparison does not hold up historically.
“One may reject what the AfD demands regarding migration policy but it is not ethnic cleansing as we know it from history, which was always associated with violent measures,” Rödder said, according to the reporting.
Michael Wolffsohn, a professor emeritus at Bundeswehr University in Munich, went further, saying he has seen no evidence that AfD politicians are planning violent attacks on specific ethnic groups should they enter government.
“Despite all the criticism of the AfD’s remigration plans, there can be no talk of ethnic cleansing,” Wolffsohn told the paper.
He also cautioned that the chancellor’s rhetoric could make an already tense national atmosphere worse. “We shouldn’t add any more fuel to the fire right now,” he said.
Fallout From a Historic State Election
The dispute comes days after the AfD scored a landmark result in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, finishing well ahead of the CDU — long the country’s default governing party — and leaving the rest of the field far behind. The outcome has rippled through national politics and raised questions about Merz’s leadership, with the chancellor reportedly responding with a series of increasingly sharp attacks on the AfD.
The ethnic cleansing charge is not the only controversial statement Merz has made this week. On Monday, addressing the CDU’s federal executive, he promised to use the power of government to stop the AfD from taking power, referring to a “right-wing extremist state government” and vowing to deploy “all the instruments” available under Germany’s “strong constitution” to defend against it.
Germany’s security apparatus includes political police forces, institutions that grew out of the post-World War II and Cold War political settlement, when the country’s constitution was designed with protections against anti-democratic movements that are unusually robust by Western standards. Those tools are, to some degree, already aimed at the AfD. The previous left-leaning national government sought to have the party declared politically unacceptable — a step on the path toward an outright ban — and the political police in Saxony-Anhalt have already classified the local AfD branch as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization.
That creates a striking situation in which the next government of Saxony-Anhalt could be formed by a party that the current government has granted itself the constitutional powers to surveil and infiltrate.
AfD Leaders Fire Back
AfD figures reacted furiously to Merz’s parliamentary remarks, with Die Welt recording the party’s anger at being accused by the chancellor of advocating what amounts to the war crime of genocide.
Stephan Brandner, a senior party figure, said Merz’s speech was a debacle. “The Chancellor was absolutely appalling, coming across like some kind of unhinged left-wing extremist. Completely out of touch, this Chancellor. Hopefully, that was his farewell speech,” he said, according to the reporting.
Other AfD leaders and commentators rejected the ethnic cleansing characterization outright, with some turning the question back on the chancellor by asking how “remigration” could be described as ethnic cleansing while open borders could not.
The episode underscores the broader collision now playing out in German politics: a chancellor whose party was routed in a state election, an opposition party riding a wave of electoral momentum, and a debate over migration policy in which both sides are reaching for the most charged language available. Historians weighing in have made clear they think at least one of those rhetorical choices crossed a line — not for being too harsh on the AfD’s ideas, but for being inaccurate about what the historical term actually means.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/09/10/remigration-not-ethnic-cleansing-say-academics-after-anti-afd-rant/