ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces German exceptionalism during the fourth wave of far-right politics. For a long time, Germany was regarded as an outlier due to the lack of an established far-right party. Times have changed, the German far right moved from the streets also to parliament. Still, Germany remains unique. The introduction discusses four features that continue to make the case exceptional: (I) The strong diversity of far-right political players in Germany and the interconnections between party and protest politics, (II) the electoral success of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), i.e., the delayed electoral breakthrough of an only recently founded far-right party, (III) the importance of ‘militant democracy’ for how established players have responded to the far right, and (IV) the relevance of the east-west divide for understanding far-right politics in Germany. Moreover, this chapter provides an overview of the four waves of far-right politics in Germany since 1945. The chapter also addresses the controversy over labelling the far right in the English and, even more, the German academic literature. Finally, the author introduces the contributions to this volume, which provides a state-of-the-art analysis on the fourth wave of far-right politics in Germany by leading scholars in the field, linking German and international scholarship.
