The leaders of the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, known as the AfD, floated a new plan last month meant to vault them into power.

It had two simple parts. Divide mainstream parties with culture wars. Then, soften the AfD’s image for Germans who say they’d never vote for it, turned off by its denigration of migrants and other stances.

The AfD got an earlier-than-expected opportunity to put the plan in motion recently, seizing on a political rift in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government over a high-court nominee. The AfD injected disorder into the proceedings, turning it into exactly the sort of culture-war fight that its leaders say could help the party.

The AfD’s new strategy emerged from an internal analysis of its performance in national elections in February. It ran on an anti-elite, anti-immigrant platform that included promises of mass deportations. It also vowed to reignite the nation’s industrial economy, powered by German coal and Russian natural gas. The party finished second, winning more than a fifth of the vote.

But the AfD found itself shut out of government, with no other party in Parliament willing to work with it.

Unable to cement its place in the Bundestag, the AfD decided that it needed to expand its appeal at the ballot box and in circles of power in Berlin.