Jude Russo, managing editor: A new political movement in Germany threatens to sweep the establishment parties from power. It criticizes Europeanism and liberal cultural imperialism; it seeks detente with the Russian East and a revival of working-class German fortunes. Its supporters are a mix of farmers, workers, students, veterans, and old and sometimes unsavory characters from the nationalist underground. The Atlanticist powers and sclerotic postwar German establishment are paralyzed—hostile, but hesitant to take decisive (albeit unconstitutional) measures against the movement.
It’s not Alternative für Deutschland in 2024; it’s the fictional Karfeld movement in John le Carré’s 1968 espionage thriller, A Small Town in Germany. Set in the gray years of British embarrassment as the UK negotiates for membership in the then-embryonic EU, le Carré’s hard-eyed pan of West German disgruntlement and Anglo-American…
