In the administration's first week in office, before Merkel had the chance to breathe, members of her own freshly picked Cabinet started attacking her from the right, using the arguments and jargon of the AfD - exactly what they agreed to avoid. The chief culprit was a familiar friend/foe: the new interior minister, Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union, or CSU - which is the conservative sister party of Merkel's own Christian Democratic Union, or CDU.

Seehofer demanded, for example, that his ministry be renamed the "Federal Ministry of Interior, Building and Heimat." Heimat can be translated as "homeland," but it is a very loaded term in German as it was central to Nazi ideology and its ethos of territorial expansion. All Germans in Europe, preached Hitler, belonged within the borders of the German Heimat. This ethnically pure homeland was folkish, seamless and imbued with the essence of Germanness.

Seehofer shocked his Cabinet peers with a surprise attack on one of the cornerstones of Merkel's 12-year chancellery. "Islam," he said, "does not belong to Germany," contradicting Merkel's express words to the contrary.  "Germany is shaped by Christianity. This includes free Sundays, church holidays and rituals such as Easter, Pentecost and Christmas"… Seehofer's words could have come straight from the mouths of the AfD's leaders.