One would think, and not unreasonably, that if there were any country on Earth that would be absolutely adverse to right wing politics, it would be Germany.

With the notable exception of Japan and, in some ways, the old Soviet Union, no other country suffered the way Germany did during World War II.

Many millions killed and maimed, cities bombed flat and decades of occupation are just a handful of good reasons to stay clear of of facists and facism.

And yet, the hard right wingers are back over there, having done better than expected in elections in a pair of German provinces.

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, became the first far-right party to win a state election in post-World War II Germany in Thuringia on Sunday under one of its hardest-right figures, Bjorn Hocke. In neighboring Saxony, it finished only just behind the mainstream center-right Christian Democratic Union, which leads the national opposition.

Important to the inroads made was a palate of traditional right wing tropes including problems with immigrants.

With more elections coming and Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government weakened, how all of this gets sorted out is anyone’s guess. And while Europe is a long way from Marquette, so it was in the 1940s, when a great many of Superiorland’s sons and daughters were sent there to fight for what was — and still is — right.

This is a situation that must be watched carefully.