The leading candidate, Friedrich Merz, a conservative who has adopted many of the AfD’s hard-line positions on immigration, used his closing statement of the debate to promise his voters that he would never allow the AfD into his government. Under him, he said, the firewall would hold.

German far-right leader Alice Weidel said she missed a congratulatory call from tech billionaire Elon Musk after Sunday's election, after a campaign in which Musk threw his weight behind Weidel's Alternative for Germany (AfD).