In a democracy built on the memory of its own collapse, Germany now confronts a structural flaw it long trusted tradition to conceal: state prosecutors answer not to the law alone, but to the ministries that employ them. With the far-right AfD poised to govern Saxony-Anhalt for the first time, judges and legal scholars are warning that the informal norms of restraint which have kept this power from being weaponized may not survive contact with a party that views the constitutional order itself as an adversary. The question Germany faces is whether a republic can afford to leave its safeguards