I have to admit that about 75 hours in this country have made me pretty nervous,” Francesca Albanese told a small audience in a Berlin newspaper office last week — including several riot police, observing attentively.

The conservative Christian Democrats appeared to be on the cusp of victory in Germany’s parliamentary elections yesterday, exit polls show. The country’s next chancellor will almost certainly be Friedrich Merz, a businessman who has promised to crack down on migrants, and slash taxes and business regulations in a bid to kick-start economic growth.

For Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors, the result is a chilling reminder of Germany’s dark past, compounded by a surge in antisemitism since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.