Governing Germany Is About to Get Messier

Recent election results in German states have been dismal for the country’s traditionally powerful centrist parties, but even by that standard, Sunday’s vote in the eastern state of Thuringia is something else. The centrists haven’t just lost big again — for the first time in post-World War II Germany, there’s no reasonable path to a working coalition government.

Thuringia, with a population of 2.1 million and just two cities of 100,000 people or more, is one of Germany’s smaller states. It’s where Harry’s Inc. makes its razor blades and Daimler AG produces one in three engines, but it’s better known as the state that includes Weimar, where the interwar German republic originated. Sunday’s election has produced a chaotic outcome somewhat like that of the Weimar Republic election of 1930 in which the center sagged, the extremes grew and a majority coalition couldn’t be formed.