In the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, a region shaped by decades of post-reunification transformation, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland crossed 40 percent of the vote on a September Sunday — a threshold that would have seemed unthinkable not long ago. The CDU, which has governed this land between the Elbe and the Harz for nearly a quarter century, saw its mandate cut in half, while the party that Germany's own intelligence services classify as extremist claimed a historic mandate of its own. What the result confirms is not merely a shift in preference but a deeper rupture in t