Frank Herbert explains the return of "the strong man" in German politics
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Germany is not the obvious place to look for a “strong man” comeback. Other countries may come more readily to mind as modern German democracy was consciously designed to make personal rule hard to sustain: power is fragmented across federalism, coalition government, parliamentary constraints, and constitutional safeguards. The Basic Law (Grundgesetz) is built around institutions, not charismatic leaders, and famously includes mechanisms like the constructive vote of no confidence (a chancellor can be removed only if a majority simultaneously elects a successor), which is meant to prevent destabilizing power gambits.
And yet: the desire for strong-man politics—less as a literal dictatorship fantasy, more as a longing for decisiveness, simplicity, and “someone who finally fixes it all”—has become an increasingly visible trope in German public life, particularly amid compounding crises (war, inflation, migration pressures, energy transformation, distrust in institutions).
This time around (at least so far), that desire doesn’t arrive with jackboots or grandiose personality cults. In Germany, it arrives wearing the mask of normalcy.
This is where Dune Messiah is useful.
Herbert’s sequel is not about a strong man rising. It is about what happens after the strong man has arrived, when the society that elevated him discovers that “rule by savior” is not a solution but a trap.
The Strong Man as a Product, Not an Origin
In Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides is already emperor. The novel’s central revelation is that the “great man” is not the author of history so much as its most convenient symbol. Paul cannot simply will the empire into sanity, because the empire does not run on policy; it runs on the myth that he is inevitable.
That’s a political lesson that travels well: strong-man dynamics are rarely only about an individual. They’re about a public willing to outsource complexity to a person, making "the mistake of thinking him infallible, they treat everything he says with more significance and certainty", yet "for better or for worse, our leaders are made of the same stuff as the rest of us" (Decker 2022, 202).
In Germany, the postwar system tries to prevent this outsourcing by design—by making leadership coalition-bound and procedurally constrained. But when politics feels permanently gridlocked, the temptation flips: institutions start looking like obstacles rather than protections. The public mood becomes: enough talk; someone decides. That mood is the soil in which strong-man longing grows, even when the constitution is engineered to resist it.
But the boss is not always right - even though "leaders still tend to think of themselves as in service to some higher, impersonal standard, like a set of principles, a tradition, a flag, or a constitution. They have few qualms about treating these with near-religious reverence, even when it's their collective decisions that make the difference. Citizens might disagree with these decisions, but in the end, they are not the boss." (Decker 2022, 2023)
Why Germany’s “Strong Man” Often Isn’t One Man
A very German twist is that the strong-man trope can return without a single dominant strongman. In other words, you can get strong-man politics as a style—punitive certainty, friend–enemy simplification, disdain for “the system,” contempt for compromise—distributed across a party or movement.
That’s why it matters that Germany’s most electorally successful anti-establishment force in recent years has not been a single charismatic presidential figure, but a party ecosystem.
In September 2024, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) became the strongest force in Thuringia with 32.8%—described by major outlets as the first time a far-right party led a regional election in postwar Germany—and it placed very close behind the CDU in Saxony. (Financial Times) In Brandenburg (22 September 2024), the AfD won about 29% while the SPD narrowly remained first. (Wikipedia)
You don’t need to claim “Germany is becoming authoritarian” to take these results seriously. The factual point is simpler: a significant share of voters is rewarding politics that promises forceful reversal, national protection, and moral clarity—classic ingredients of strong-man appeal, even when they’re packaged as “just telling the truth” or “finally restoring order.”
Herbert’s Most German-Relevant Warning: Myth Outruns Intentions
Dune Messiah is obsessed with a grim asymmetry: what the leader intends matters less than what the symbol enables.
Paul privately dislikes the consequences of his rise. Yet the machinery built around him—religious fervor, state violence, bureaucratic momentum—keeps going. The myth has inertia. The public faith demands performance. The empire cannot simply “return to normal,” because the myth is now the normal.
That maps onto a modern (social) media environment where political identity attaches to symbols faster than to legislation:
The strongman isn’t “proven” by results; he is “proved” by conflict.
Resistance to him becomes evidence that he is necessary.
Complexity becomes suspicion; expertise becomes elite conspiracy.
Herbert’s lesson isn’t that the strong man lies. It’s that strong-man politics turns politics into a story structure: there must be enemies, betrayal, purification, renewal. Once that structure is adopted, ordinary democratic bargaining can start to look like weakness or corruption.
Germany’s “Anti-Charisma” Version of the Trope
Because of German history, overt charismatic authoritarian aesthetics are socially radioactive. So the trope adapts. The “strong” posture often presents as:
relentless certainty (“it’s obvious”)
disdain for deliberation (“they just talk”)
suspicion of pluralism (“real Germans vs. them”)
calls for harsher enforcement as reassurance
contempt for coalition compromise as moral failure
This is strong-man energy without the official coronation.
And here the Grundgesetz is both a protection and a pressure valve. Germany’s parliamentary system makes sudden personal capture harder, but it can also make government look perpetually negotiated—an easy target for movements that sell decisive politics. That is not a flaw in the constitution; it’s the cost of building democracy to resist personal rule. (Gesetze im Internet)
5) The Most Uncomfortable Herbert Parallel: The Public’s Demand for Relief
Herbert’s harshest point in Dune Messiah is not “leaders betray.” It’s that societies seek relief from ambiguity, guilt, complexity, and fear, and strong-man politics offers that relief as a feeling.
Germany’s recent political strains (especially visible in parts of eastern Germany, where AfD support has surged) have created conditions in which many voters feel unheard, economically insecure, or culturally disoriented. Analyses of the 2024 eastern state elections commonly cite dissatisfaction with mainstream parties and material anxieties as drivers. (Financial Times)
Herbert would say: when the public wants relief more than process, it starts looking for a figure (or a movement) that promises closure—an end to argument, an end to complexity, an end to “politics as usual.”
But Dune Messiah insists that closure is a fantasy. The “strong man” does not end politics; he replaces politics with myth and enforcement, and then discovers he cannot easily undo what that replacement unleashed.
So What Does Herbert “Explain,” Factual-Claim-Free?
Not that Germany is destined for dictatorship. Not that any one party equals a fictional empire. The safer, factual claim is narrower:
Germany built institutions explicitly designed to prevent personal rule. (Bundesverfassungsgericht)
Yet recent electoral shifts show a significant appetite for anti-establishment, hardline styles of politics, especially in parts of the country. (Financial Times)
Herbert’s Dune Messiah offers a conceptual lens for why strong-man longing recurs: it’s a response to uncertainty and institutional distrust, and it thrives on mythic simplification more than policy competence.
In that sense, Herbert doesn’t “predict” Germany's future; he clarifies a mechanism: when people stop trusting systems, they start trusting symbols—and symbols are easier to weaponize than institutions are to repair.
References:
Decker, K.S. (2022). Dune and Philosophy. John Wiley & Sons.
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