In the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, a region still shaped by the long shadow of its communist past and economic marginalization, the far-right Alternative for Germany party claimed more than 44 percent of the vote on Sunday — more than doubling its previous result and reducing the governing CDU to a historic low. The result, driven by deep frustration with economic stagnation and anti-migration sentiment, places Germany at a threshold it has not approached since 1945: the possible formation of a far-right state government. History, it seems, does not always move in one direction.