THE RISE OF GERMANY'S FAR RIGHT

Alice Weidel's AfD party is making gainswith a boost from the Trump Administration

- SIMON SHUSTER

THE TWEET FROM ELON MUSK ARRIVED A FEW days before Christmas, and it felt like a gift from heaven to Germany's far-right political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD). It consisted of six words: "Only the AfD can save Germany." The party's leader, Alice Weidel, assumed it must be a hoax. Refreshing her feed, she stared at the message and checked its source: @elonmusk. Then she called an aide to make sure he could see it too. After that, Weidel recalls, "I actually almost fell from my chair."

The AfD, founded in 2013 on a promise to slash spending, close Germany's borders, and forsake the European Union, had never earned such a powerful endorsement. It had always been on the fringe, with about a tenth of the seats in Parliament and no role in the federal government. Ahead of elections on Feb. 23, polls show it has the support of about a fifth of voters. The rest would sooner expect the AfD to embarrass Germany than to save it.

The country's main intelligence service has labelled some branches of the AfD as extremist groups and placed several of its leaders under surveillance. In the European Parliament, an alliance of right-wing groups expelled the party last spring for being too radical. One AfD official had suggested the Nazi SS were "not all criminals." Another has called the Holocaust a mere speck of "bird sh-t" on the glorious sweep of German history.

Weidel speaks at an AfD meeting after being picked Jan. 11 to lead the party in elections