AfD & Germany's Collapse: Brain Drain and Business Escapes Are Real | Dr. Stephan Ebner

Germany stands at a crossroads. The dramatic surge of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in regional elections reflects a deeper unraveling: a loss of trust in mainstream parties, stark economic dislocation, and an elite–public divide over war, migration, and sovereignty. The recorded conversation with Dr. Stephan Ebner crystallizes how these threads interweave — not as isolated grievances but as mutually reinforcing failures that push citizens toward radical electoral alternatives. What emerges is a portrait of a polity experiencing both political realignment and tangible flight: professionals, firms, and civic confidence are moving out as social cohesion frays. ## Nazi comparisons, war and Ukraine One of the most contested narratives in Germany today is the reflexive comparison of the AfD with the Nazis. The conversation makes clear that such analogies are doing political work rather than clarifying realities. Participants pushed back against the blanket equation: while the AfD contains conservatives and nationalists, it does not espouse racial imperial ambitions or totalitarian redesign of the state in the mold of 1930s fascism. Dr. Stephan Ebner pointed out that many AfD supporters come from professional strata—doctors, lawyers, judges—whose presence complicates a simple pathological reading of the party. At the same time, the war in Ukraine acts as a powerful catalyzer for these debates. A significant swath of the German electorate is deeply skeptical of continued financial and military support to Kyiv. For those voters, the memory of past wars and the practical reality of rising living costs make foreign entanglements unattractive. The exchange highlighted how this skepticism feeds AfD’s appeal: promises of neutrality, of stopping payments and deployments, resonate with citizens who feel the costs of geopolitics in their pocketbooks and neighborhoods. The result is a politicized hazard: when mainstream parties insist that support for Ukraine is non-negotiable, they risk alienating voters whose sense of national interest differs sharply. ## Leaving Germany and brain drain One of the most striking themes in the conversation is the exodus of talent and capital. Dr. Ebner described his own departure—selling property, closing offices in Berlin and Frankfurt, and relocating to Luxembourg and Switzerland—not as anecdote but as emblematic. The reasons are multifold: an onerous tax-and-fee burden, perceived insecurity in certain urban areas, regulatory complexity, and, centrally, a feeling that Germany no longer values high achievers. This brain drain is not merely rhetorical. Law firms, start-ups, and skilled professionals are reportedly recommending relocation to clients and peers. The economics are brutally straightforward: high taxes and high costs of compliance reduce disposable returns on effort; deteriorating public safety and excessive administrative friction make living and operating in Germany less attractive. The consequence is a feedback loop — when the productive leave, tax bases shrink, public services strain, and political legitimacy erodes, accelerating further departures. The conversation framed this not as a short-term blip but as a structural challenge that will shape Germany’s competitiveness for years. ## The EU, Brexit and sovereignty European integration and the question of national sovereignty were prominent in the exchange. AfD’s resurgence, the speakers argued, is partially a reaction to a perceived loss of decision-making power to Brussels and to supra-national elites. The party’s flirtation with direct-democracy tools and its insistence on national prerogatives echo a wider European tack toward reclaiming sovereignty that powered Brexit and other populist movements. The dialogue underscored a cultural element: many voters feel alienated by an elite consensus that prioritizes abstract European projects or foreign policy commitments over bread-and-butter domestic concerns. Direct democracy, admired in Swiss systems, appeals because it promises tangible agency — a way for citizens to say yes or no to policies that affect their daily lives. The exchange highlighted how elites often dismiss such mechanisms by questioning voters’ capacity, inadvertently deepening the gulf. That dismissal fuels a narrative that Europeans no longer govern themselves but are governed by technocratic or external imperatives, a narrative AfD channels into electoral momentum. ## War anxiety, arms exports and the SPD War anxiety sits at the intersection of foreign policy and domestic discontent. The conversation revealed widespread public unease about Germany’s role in supplying funds and arms amid the Ukraine conflict. This unease is compounded by perceptions of political incoherence: mainstream parties, including the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which historically stood for social and economic protections, appear transformed into drivers of a foreign policy the electorate does not endorse. Participants were blunt about the SPD’s eroded identity. Where Willy Brandt’s social-democratic project once combined domestic security with international engagement, contemporary voters see blurred lines between the SPD and conservative rivals. The effect is twofold: older SPD supporters migrate toward parties that promise tangible social relief, and younger professionals vote with their feet. The conversation suggested that arms exports and endless fiscal commitments to foreign theaters are not only fiscal decisions but moral signals — that national priorities have been outsourced. That perception feeds the AfD message that Germany must refocus inward, prioritize its citizens, and resist a militarized foreign policy posture. ## Energy policy and Germany’s economic future Energy policy emerged as a central, tangible fault line. Germany’s pivot away from domestic nuclear power and toward intermittent renewables has been sold as green modernity, yet the conversation painted a different picture: higher energy costs, reduced industrial competitiveness, and a reliance on neighboring states for baseload power. The result has been paradoxical and politically damaging — citizens see wind turbines across the landscape but still buy electricity from France; firms face rising input costs; public faith in technocratic policymaking falters. This misalignment between environmental rhetoric and economic realities has a political cost. People ask why policies that are framed as sustainable produce immediate pain without clear, short-term benefits. These anxieties translate into electoral choices. Parties that promise to reorient policy to secure affordable, reliable energy — whether by reviving nuclear options, diversifying supplies, or reshaping regulatory burdens — tap into concrete concerns. The conversation thus linked energy policy directly to Germany’s future as an industrial hub: get it wrong, and the country risks deindustrialization, capital flight, and long-term unemployment. ## Immigration, Iran and Israel Migration policy and foreign conflicts such as those involving Iran and Israel feed into the broader narrative of social strain and cultural anxiety. In the conversation, migration is not framed simply as xenophobia but as a question of capacity and social contract: how many newcomers can a welfare and regulatory system absorb without displacing existing citizens from the social safety net? Concerns about crime and security, amplified by personal accounts of robbery and urban disorder, make migration a visceral issue for many. Similarly, Germany’s stances on Israel and on tensions with Iran are read through a domestic lens. Voters want a foreign policy that does not increase domestic risk or siphon resources away from pressing internal problems. The discussion emphasized how AfD’s line — less external entanglement, stricter migration control — resonates because it promises a reassertion of state responsibility toward its own citizens. For those

AfD & Germany's Collapse: Brain Drain and Business Escapes Are Real | Dr. Stephan Ebner The AfD just won local elections in Germany. Why? Well, not only Ukraine is currently going under, Germany is following, with its economy and social structure in deep dive. This is what explains the rise of the AfD—something the Pro-War Parties in the German establishment try to deny so hard, they rather tarnish AfD voters as "racists" rather than looking into their actual grievances. Dr. Stefan Ebner, an international lawyer working across the US, Germany, and Taiwan, discusses the AfD’s rise in Saxony, Germany’s political and economic decline, immigration, war with Russia, the EU, energy policy, the judiciary, and why professionals and businesses are leaving Germany. The law office of Dr. Stephan Ebner: https://lanaapma.ch/unser-team/ Our Links: Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00:00 AfD victory and Germany’s decline 00: 08:43 AfD as opposition to the political class 00:10:33 Verfassungsschutz and German democracy 00: 12:07 Election outlook and direct democracy 00:18:05 Nazi comparisons, war and Ukraine 00:23:03 Leaving Germany and brain drain 00:27:13 The EU, Brexit and sovereignty 00:36:20 War anxiety, arms exports and the SPD 00:41:09 Energy policy and Germany’s economic future 00:45:32 Immigration, Iran and Israel 00:50:14 Rule of law and Germany’s future #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. Today I'm talking again to Dr. Stefan Ebner, an international lawyer working in the US, Germany, and Taiwan, who has a keen interest in German politics. Hence, we are going to talk about the landslide victory of the AfD in Saxony. Stefan, welcome. #Stephan Ebner Thank you so much, Pascal, for having me. #Pascal Yeah, thank you so much for coming back. And you've been observing the rise of the AfD, but also the decline of Germany. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how these two—I mean, in my view, the two go hand in hand. What about you? #Stephan Ebner -- 1 of 19 -- I couldn't agree more. The one could not be without the other one. And to be honest, it's terrible what we are witnessing. I myself, I'm German. I'm from an old German family. And I have run away, to be honest. I'm not in Germany anymore. I don't have a house there anymore. I have sold everything. I now live in Luxembourg and in Switzerland because it's unbearable in Germany at the moment. First of all, we are taxed. We are taxed by the government in a way that is not fair anymore. We purely work for the government. That is terrible. We have fees, social security fees. You have to pay for health insurance. You have to pay, in any matter, for an army of public officials. And there is no end. There is no end. So what have we done? We had two offices, one in downtown Frankfurt, a main one at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, at Pariser Platz. And we have closed both of them, and we have opened one in Luxembourg City and one in Basel. And we are very happy there, to be honest. It is a huge, huge difference. The safety is much better. Security is much better. We don't have that many mass immigrants as we have in Germany. Me, for example, I have been the victim of a crime, of a robbery in Frankfurt, downtown. I have been robbed by a drug addict. He has pulled out a knife. So we are always very keen in Germany that we have such strong gun laws. Okay, criminals don't care. They take a knife and rob you. And I haven't witnessed something like that in Luxembourg or Switzerland at all. And we are recommending to all of our clients, especially to high potentials, leave the country. Leave it now. Seriously, that's our general advice. Leave the country as soon as possible. And if you think to come to Germany to be a professional, think twice. Yeah, it's not worthwhile. The only thing you will find there is pain, is pain. And if you are a high achiever, you will be deeply disappointed. And maybe a last point, and then I will throw the ball to you again in regard to the election and to AfD. To be honest, we also think that AfD is the last hope of Germany. And we cannot understand why the public, why German media are saying that all people who say AfD is a solution, that they are fascists or right-wing extremists. That's rubbish, to be honest. #Pascal You know, so I'm a paying member of the Social Democrats, right? So I situate myself, like, clearly on the left. And I cannot understand how it is that in Germany, obviously, social pain is so strong. And the pain is not just about immigration, right? It's also about, as you said, the price level, what everything costs, how much money you make or that you don't make, and that people have work at all, that they are not free to eat anymore as they want, that they're told by the government what kind of electricity they have to buy, and all these kind of things. You know, just the stuff that makes life really, really hard for the little guy and the little girl. And now we've got a party that says, guys, we want to solve that. Guys, the things that hurt you is what interests us. And the mainstream parties, CDU and SPD especially, they just tell people that that's not what's important. What's important is to have a war with Russia and to support Israel in its genocide in Gaza. Yes. And then they don't understand why that doesn't ring very well with the base. And we are at the point -- 2 of 19 -- where that party that says, like, guys, okay, I'm going to care about what you care about, that party now makes 44% of the vote. And the rationalization by the other side is, those are Nazis. How is it that one part of German society is so much out of touch with the other part? How is that possible to you? #Stephan Ebner I have no real explanation for you. Probably because they have been in power for decades. They thought that they are very special, that they are saving the world by protecting the environment. So if you come to Germany, you will hardly only see wind turbines. We have more wind turbines than human beings here. And are they efficient? No, they aren't. We are buying nuclear power from France because we don't have enough energy. Energy is so expensive here. But we don't have any nuclear plants anymore in Germany. But France does. So it's just ridiculous. We don't have any real explanation for that. It probably stems back to Germany's history, to the Second World War, which has not been really... #Pascal Sorry, it frustrates me so much, because what happened to the SPD? What happened to Willy Brandt's party? What happened to the party that once upon a time not only did social democracy, which is like cheaper prices and social security networks and so on, on the one hand, and Ostpolitik on the other? What happened to that part of the left? Because Olaf Scholz, the last SPD chancellor of yours, he was an abomination, right? He was just a carbon copy of Merz, or Merz a carbon copy of him. And Merz is from the CDU. What happened to the SPD? #Stephan Ebner It's dead. We don't see it anymore. And the members of the SPD, they have joined AfD because they probably have seen that the SPD will not make any difference anymore. #Pascal The voters, the voters, the little guy on the street who used to put some hope into left-wing, like, working-class rhetoric. They find that now in the AfD, right? #Stephan Ebner Absolutely, they do. And you have mentioned another topic that is really, really of importance here: the war with Russia. We are at war with Russia. We are paying billions and billions and billions to Ukraine. And the average German citizen doesn't want that. We don't want that. We had a war with -- 3 of 19 -- Russia, and it was terrible. It did not work out. And we have no interest in fighting Putin at all. And we do not think that Putin would attack NATO. And these conventional parties in Germany, they are terrible. In war mode, they want to fight Russia, and they tell us lies in the media. We don't believe the media anymore. There is no free media in Germany. I'm sorry. They are telling us that Putin is attacking Leipzig Airport and that there are guns hidden in our forests for Russian troops. We don't believe that at all. If Putin wants to conquer Germany, they could just go through with their tanks. So that's ridiculous. And we think that this is just the first step. Now we're just paying money, and it won't take too long. Then we will bring German soldiers back to the East. And that is something we don't want. And they don't care. But AfD cares. #Pascal They say we will not be involved with Russia. Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there. So your view is that—or is it your view that the AfD is kind of the political amalgamation now of all of the people who feel completely sold out by the current political class and this kind of—I don't even know which term to use in order to describe them—the CDU, SPD, FDP, that are so much on this neoliberal, neoconservative, like, marching-order line that's coming from Washington. And that's the opposition, the political opposition movement, kind of the natural opposition movement, which also goes together with, on the left, you have BSW, right? But they're much smaller, but they are also kind of this, like, let's not do that anymore party, right? #Stephan Ebner Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And even more, we have a lot of intelligent people, eager people, industrious people, high potentials that say we need change. We cannot just go on. We need to change. And AfD is the only party that really offers change. And they don't care if they are probably right-wing or something like that. If you have to vote for a right-wing party to get change and to save your country, well, you will vote for that party and you don't care. #Pascal Yeah. I mean, the CDU is also considered right-wing, or at least right of center, a conservative party, right? Now, why is it that people call the CDU, you know, right conservative, and the AfD extreme right? Why is it that your Verfassungsschutz, your Office for Constitutional Protection or the Protection of the Constitution, is officially investigating them or keeping them under observation for right extremism? What is that part of the AfD that so many people associate with something very bad? #Stephan Ebner -- 4 of 19 -- Can you describe that? I'm happy to. Nobody takes the Verfassungsschutz, the protection forces for the Constitution, seriously in Germany anymore. It is something you only find in Germany. You hardly find any other country globally that has something like that. And if you look at the Verfassungsschutz, they are led by the political parties, by the little political parties. And if you imagine the situation, it's ridiculous. It's like a bad joke. You have the CDU in power, and Chancellor Merz is telling the Verfassungsschutz what they should do. And now Mr. Merz has a problem with AfD because the German people vote for AfD. So what do you think? Do you think that the Verfassungsschutz is neutral? We don't think so. We think that's a means to fight political opponents. And we think that's a big issue because that is not a democracy anymore. We see it more as a tyranny than a democracy. We have a leading party that is using means of the state, officers, police officers. We have paid them with our money to fight the party the gross majority of Germans is voting for. That is really scary. That is scary. #Pascal Now, you know, Saxony is a state in the east, and it has now 34—it voted 43.8% for AfD in Saxony. So roughly 44. The estimation is that the AfD support in other parts of Germany, especially in the West, is lower. But when will we see that? When will the next elections be in