DIE ZEIT: Mr. Kollmorgen, the whole of Germany has been out of control over the past two weeks - because of Thuringia. Would you have believed that this could ever happen?

Raj Kollmorgen: It's a big theater that we were able to visit. At times I thought: politics, as serious as it is for all of us, really does have entertainment value. Especially now, after the latest volte-face and the debates about who could possibly become interim prime minister. Of course I am very moved by this story. In the question of who is responsible, one side has so far come up short for me.

ZEIT: Which one?

Kollmorgen : What the Left, the Greens and the SPD have done in connection with Thomas Kemmerich's election is something these three parties should certainly reflect on self-critically. The left-liberal discourse has focused its accusations on the CDU and FDP ...

ZEIT:... because these two parties, together with the AfD, elected Mr. Kemmerich as Minister President.

Kollmorgen: And they deserve all the protest they get. But we must not forget that in Thuringia, a red-red-green alliance went into a prime ministerial election without its own majority. What's more, they have already allocated portfolios and concluded a coalition agreement without a majority of their own, as if they could essentially decide alone how politics would be conducted in Thuringia over the next five years.

ZEIT: But you couldn't.

Kollmorgen: Of course they couldn't - as it turned out. The CDU and FDP obviously felt it was an imposition, an arrogance of power, that posts had already been allocated before a prime minister had been elected. It may well be that the Left Party had made intensive efforts in advance to enter into talks with the CDU. But if it is absolutely impossible to reach an agreement - then you cannot go into a vote as if de facto toleration were a matter of course. It was a gamble. The three coalition members took a risk with their eyes open and were punished.

ZEIT: Doesn't that just show how muddled the situation is? Is democracy in danger?

Kollmorgen: The political establishment has certainly found itself in a situation that it didn't know before. Or: that many did not want to acknowledge. We can now see that a party landscape and a political culture have developed in the East that are fundamentally different from the mainstream in Germany. And we're not just talking about majorities, but also about how parliamentarianism and democracy are interpreted. What we experienced in Thuringia marks the real end of the Bonn Republic.

ZEIT: Hasn't that been over for a long time?

Kollmorgen: There have been many indications that the East is different from the West. But what is now happening in Thuringia is no longer just shaking Thuringia, but at least the CDU and FDP throughout Germany. In the East, we are experiencing the end of the beginning: after the upheaval, we had an initial consolidation from the mid-1990s; we had the spectacular election results for extreme parties in the early 2000s. Now the upheaval has progressed, with an established left, a 25 percent AfD - and the classic West German parties. They are being torn between the interests of the West German centrists and East German stubbornness.

ZEIT: Conditions are more stable in the West.

Kollmorgen: I'm just not sure whether it will stay that way. And whether the cluelessness with which many of those who set the tone in the republic speak will help. On Anne Will, Bavaria's Minister President Markus Söder asked whether it was acceptable for one part of the country to permanently behave differently politically. And he said that the left was still uncritical of state socialism.

ZEIT: It still has old cadres in its ranks.

Kollmorgen: You can say a lot of critical things about this party. But to say that it has not painfully come to terms with its GDR past is simply wrong. West German party grandees still look at the Left as if it were an enigma. And now this thinking and this rhetoric is being transferred to the AfD: both are being treated as inappropriate, disturbing foreign bodies, as alien to the system. In doing so, however, they are also unintentionally treating the East as not belonging. After 30 years, we realize that the East is still a political appendix. Everyone gets upset from time to time, but it remains an appendage. At the same time, the West realizes that its certainties are also being shaken. "The problem with the East has been played down long enough"

ZEIT: Perhaps the old federal states will be spared an overly strong AfD.

Kollmorgen: Let's wait and see. As we know, the SPD is also shrinking across the board in the West, and the CDU is obviously in the midst of a conflict-ridden upheaval.

ZEIT: Should the federal CDU leave it up to the Thuringian CDU to decide whether to form a coalition with the Left?

Kollmorgen: Of course it can't simply do that, because that would jeopardize the party's integration. But what no longer seems to work is the authoritarian message from Berlin. Perhaps the party headquarters are now learning the hard way: the East German problem has been talked down for long enough.

ZEIT: Now they are losing their grip on the East?

Kollmorgen: I am a disciple of Max Weber. There is a middle class of functionaries without whom rule and democracy cannot function. The CDU parliamentary group in Thuringia also stands between the party people and the top leadership. Nothing works against them and against these eastern district associations on this issue.

ZEIT: Leadership means convincing people of your cause.

Kollmorgen: Yes, but not through coercion. In the West, political and cultural disciplinary measures still work because most people stick to established rules and cultures. In the East, there is a different culture - including that of unruliness. Party leaders will probably have to deal with this even more in the future. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer visibly failed with the rather childish idea of going to Erfurt and clocking people in.

ZEIT : Is that the kind of East German self-confidence you like?

Kollmorgen: Whether I think it's good is not important. But such orders from above undermine the democratic process in the East. Along the lines of: we may not be seriously interested in you all year round, but when the going gets tough, our authority counts. This gives rise to defensiveness, distancing and alienation. First in the apparatuses. And then in the population. And we've been through this before: in the early nineties. The East German party branches were only allowed to practice what had been planned at the top.

ZEIT : Thuringia's CDU experienced such orders from above shortly after the state elections.

Kollmorgen: Yes, state leader Mike Mohring tried to approach the Left and was told off by Berlin. The CDU has to moderate its dispute over direction. There are those members who absolutely want to work together with the AfD and who justify this with a close relationship in terms of content. And then there are those who want to cooperate with the left, but more out of expediency; to stabilize the country. At the moment, I suspect that the AfD wing would assert itself brilliantly.

ZEIT: This could break the party.

Kollmorgen: But opening up to the left is also difficult. In GDR times, Thuringia was an unruly region compared to Brandenburg or Saxony-Anhalt. Partly because of its location on the border, the GDR regime was weaker than elsewhere and resistance was stronger. Without Jena, the Peaceful Revolution would have been inconceivable. That's why the front line between the left and the CDU was particularly pronounced here after 1990. I think it will take time to come to terms with this.

ZEIT: Perhaps the whole situation can now be solved very pragmatically: if someone like the CDU's Christine Lieberknecht were to become interim prime minister and there were to be new elections, the problem would have been avoided for the time being.

Kollmorgen: I think that, however it is arranged now, new elections must come quickly. Even shortly after the state elections, I didn't understand why new elections were declared taboo. If parties cannot agree on coalitions or toleration, new elections are the only sensible option. We always demand that the parties should not become arbitrary - but then, if there is no overlap despite all efforts, we must also agree to them saying: Okay, we'll put this to the voters again.

ZEIT: Even after new elections, we will see a strong AfD. And the CDU could also be attracted to it in the east in the future.

Kollmorgen: We'll see what prevails. Michael Kretschmer in Saxony is pursuing a clear anti-AfD line and is able to maintain it at the moment because his party is reasonably successful with it. A lot depends on how the AfD develops. Nobody simply remains a protest party for 20 years. Perhaps its success will run out, perhaps it will soon lose the de facto blocking minority it has with its 25% results. Perhaps the AfD is also realizing that it is harming itself with theatrical performances like the one it is now putting on in Thuringia. In any case, its success is not set in stone. 

Interview: Martin Machowecz