Georg Wenzel was standing outside a bank in the town of Pirna on a recent morning, lamenting how some German lawmakers want to ban the only political party he trusts.
A young woman walked by just as I asked Mr. Wenzel, a 67-year-old retiree, what he thought the biggest issues were for his vote. She was wearing a hijab.
Mr. Wenzel pointed at her. “That,” he said.
More than a million refugees from Africa and the Middle East have legally settled in Germany over the last decade, many of them Muslim. In towns like Pirna, in the country’s east near the Czech border, anger over immigration runs high. It has turned much of eastern Germany into a stronghold for the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, which finished second national elections in February, in part on the strength of its promises to seal borders and deport migrants.
The AfD has been classified as right-wing extremist by German intelligence, over its denigration of immigrants and what the government called an unconstitutional campaign to treat German residents differently depending on where they were born.
That designation has strengthened other parties’ resolve not to invite the AfD into government. It has also fueled a push by some lawmakers, including center-left Social Democrats who are partners in the current government, to ban the AfD entirely. Germany has outlawed political parties twice before, both times in the 1950s, banning a neo-Nazi party, which dissolved, and the Communist Party. America and its allies banned the party of Hitler soon after defeating Germany in 1945.
The push to eliminate the AfD is in its early stages. There is no guarantee it will succeed. Recent polls show about half of Germans support outlawing the party. But many lawmakers, including AfD opponents in the government, worry that the evidence is too weak for the nation’s constitutional court — which would make the ultimate decision — to agree.
In the Pirna area, where nearly half of voters backed the AfD in February, many people say the threat of a ban feels personal — and disenfranchising.
Mr. Wenzel said he would stop voting entirely if the AfD were off the ballot. It would be a situation he said would feel similar to life under communist rule in the former East Germany, before reunification, when voting made no difference.
“In a democracy, you also have to be able to represent the opposition,” Mr. Wenzel said. “We have 11 million people who voted for the party,” he added. “Eleven million people who would simply be banned.”
Brigitte Holz, a 75-year-old retiree who said she is worried about immigration and the cost of living, also said she’d likely quit voting if the AfD were outlawed. So did Jochen Zimmermann, who used to live in Pirna but now lives in the neighboring town of Heidenau. He said his choice in an election without the AfD would probably be “no one.”
Pirna, a town of about 40,000 on the Elbe River, has the sort of demographics that are especially strong for the AfD, starting with its location in the east, where the party does far better than in the former West Germany. The town skews both older and less affluent than the national average. Its state, Saxony, has one of Germany’s smallest populations of foreign-born residents.
Pirna residents elected the first AfD-backed mayor in the country two years ago. That mayor, Tim Lochner, said in an email that he would expect many AfD voters in town to “withdraw politically” if it were suppressed and to “see it as confirmation of their reservations about the existing party system.”
Even some supporters of other parties in Pirna seemed to agree. “You can’t ban opinions,” said Heinz Winter, a 69-year-old Pirna resident who typically supports the center-right Christian Democrats, the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “The people who vote for the AfD and think that way won’t disappear.”
Some AfD opponents worry the move could backfire, energizing AfD supporters who could flock to another party espousing similar views. “If the AfD were to be banned, I believe it would become even stronger,” said Jens Richter, 62, who normally supports the center-left Social Democrats.
Gisela Franke, a Pirna resident who said she has previously supported the far-left party Die Linke, said she thinks banning the AfD could open the door to banning other parties.
It’s not a universal opinion. Ash Koos, a left-leaning 19-year-old who lives in Pirna, said he worries a ban may provoke a violent reaction from AfD voters. Still, Mr. Koos said he supports prohibiting the party.
And Klaus Entenmann, a retired entrepreneur who typically votes for the centrist and pro-market Free Democrats, said a ban was appropriate, given Germany’s Nazi history.
“You can’t predict what voters will decide while you wait,” he said. “They also decided on Adolf Hitler. That’s why I think we mustn’t let it get that far again.”
Jim Tankersley contributed reporting from Berlin.
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