Business leaders worry about the rise of the AfD

“A PARTY THAT wants to abolish the euro, rejects immigration and denies climate change is hurting Germany as a place for doing business,” warns Karl Haeusgen, boss of the VDMA, Germany’s machinery association. Rainer Dulger, his counterpart at the BDA, the main association of German employers, says the strong polling numbers of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are upsetting him, personally and as an entrepreneur. And Siegfried Russwurm, boss of the biggest German industry association (BDI), thundered at an east German economic forum in Bad Saarow in June that “xenophobia and prejudice are the very last thing our country needs”.