Election
Germany 2025 Federal Election
February 23, 2025
Germany's snap federal election of 23 February 2025, called after the collapse of the SPD-led coalition, returned the CDU/CSU to first place with 28.5% of second votes and made Friedrich Merz chancellor; the AfD placed second at 20.8%, its best federal result. Turnout reached 82.5%, the highest since reunification. The vote itself was administered cleanly on hand-counted paper ballots — but the campaign was targeted by the Russian Storm-1516 operation, which spread fabricated videos and false ballot-rigging claims that the German government formally attributed to GRU-backed actors in December 2025.
Official results
- CDU/CSU (Friedrich Merz)28.5%14,160,402
208 seats — CDU 164, CSU 44; Friedrich Merz became chancellor
- Alternative for Germany (AfD) — Alice Weidel20.8%10,328,780
152 seats
- Social Democratic Party (SPD) — Olaf Scholz16.4%8,149,124
120 seats
- Alliance 90/The Greens11.6%5,762,380
85 seats
- The Left (Die Linke)8.8%4,356,532
64 seats
- Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW)5%2,472,947
4.98% — just below the 5% threshold; no seats
- Free Democratic Party (FDP)4.3%2,148,757
Below the 5% threshold — no seats
The Integrity Ledger
What the evidence establishes, and what it does not — side by side, each finding sourced and tiered.
What is established
- Information operationsConfirmed
The Storm-1516 operation spread fabricated videos and false claims around the election — targeting Robert Habeck, Annalena Baerbock and Friedrich Merz, and claiming the AfD was missing from Leipzig postal ballots and that Hamburg ballots were destroyed. In December 2025 the German government formally attributed the campaign to GRU-backed Russian actors, describing it as an attempt to influence the election and destabilise the country.
- Foreign interferenceCorroborated
The BfV stood up a dedicated election-protection taskforce and publicly warned in January 2025 of illegitimate foreign influence operations aimed at the vote, naming Storm-1516. The later government attribution placed responsibility with Russia's military intelligence, the GRU.
What is not established
- Result falsificationDebunked
Claims that the AfD was kept off postal ballots in Leipzig and that ballots were destroyed in Hamburg were fabricated as part of the attributed operation; the actual ballots listed the AfD normally. The count — hand-counted paper ballots in the presence of party agents — was challenged by no court or authority and produced no substantiated fraud finding.
Process assessment
A professionally administered election whose integrity story sits outside the polling station. The vote itself — paper ballots counted by hand in public — was never credibly impugned; the documented threat was a foreign information operation manufacturing exactly the ballot-rigging narratives this site tracks, and Germany's counter-disinformation authorities named and later attributed it.