Many fear chancellor is wrong man for the job at a time when Germany’s defences against far right are crumbling A cataclysm. A 9.0 earthquake. A five-alarm fire. A bitter rejection of Germany’s joyous reunification three decades ago, and a threat to the democratic postwar order. Sizing up the repercussions of last weekend’s win for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party in the former communist state of Saxony-Anhalt, German commentators expressed a sense of doom, panic and helplessness in the political establishment.