German Election Anxiety and AI Fears Dominate Pre-Vote Mood as Marie Kreutzer's "Gentle Monster" Premieres

Ahead of an election Sunday, the mood in Berlin is unusually subdued, even depressed, according to a Freitag column by Barbara Schweizerhof. Two topics are causing widespread anxiety: the AfD's success in Saxony-Anhalt and the perceived threat of artificial intelligence. The AfD result in Saxony-Anhalt continues to reverberate like a bad echo, and while analyses are proliferating, Schweizerhof finds none fully convincing—each seems to miss something, be too short-sighted, or overly generalized, yet they remain compelling to read. In a contribution for Freitag, Patrick Kaczmarczyk again emphasizes the economic situation. Georg Seeßlen examines Siegmund's political mode. Meanwhile, Marie Kreutzer's "Gentle Monster" is launching. The final analysis of the AfD's election victory in Saxony-Anhalt has not yet been found, but the search for causes must continue, the column argues.