Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) celebrated a record election result Sunday that fuelled its wildest hopes of one day entering government, a horror scenario for its many foes.

The centre-right CDU/CSU bloc is on course to win Germany’s federal election, initial exit polls showed on Sunday.

Sporting a cap with the Trump-inspired slogan “Make Duisburg Great Again”, AfD candidate Alan Imamura was upbeat as he campaigned for the far-right party in Germany’s ailing industrial heartland.

Germans began voting Sunday in a pivotal election, with the conservatives the strong favourites after a campaign rocked by a far-right surge and the dramatic return of US President Donald Trump.

Russian dissident punk band Pussy Riot played at a pro-Ukraine protest in Berlin on Saturday, on the eve of German elections as the war nears three years.

Germany’s conservative election frontrunner Friedrich Merz promised Saturday in his last rally before Sunday’s elections that if he takes power he will be a “strong voice in the European Union”.

German voters head to the polls in a winter election on Sunday but may not have a new government for some time.

The Berlin film festival is set to hand out its awards on Saturday, with a selection of 19 films and documentaries competing for the top Golden Bear prize.

A Syrian man arrested after a stabbing attack at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial that wounded a Spanish man had been harbouring a “plan to kill Jews”, police and prosecutors said Saturday.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday stressed his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and defended Germany’s commitment to free speech in a pushback against recent broadsides from the Trump administration.