The Central Council of Jews is deeply shocked by the electoral success of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in a local election in Thuringia.

“To be clear: not every one of the AfD voters has extreme right-wing views,” said the president of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, according to the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper.

“But the party whose candidates they voted for is, according to the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, extreme right-wing.”

Schuster said he was deeply concerned that so many people agreed with this. “This is a breach of the dam that the democratic political forces in this country cannot simply accept.”

The International Auschwitz Committee also responded with horror to the result.

Executive Vice President Christoph Heubner said, “Today is a sad day for the Sonneberg district, for Germany and for democracy. A majority of voters have obviously said goodbye to democracy and deliberately opted for an extreme right-wing party of destruction dominated by a Nazi.”