There won't be democracy in Germany if the AfD gets into power. You need to stop the wound from gushing before you can worry about setting the broken bone.

There is a difference between conservatism and being a threat to the democratic order. Germany has conservative parties that are perfectly valid, it's just that the AfD is not one of them.

Banning the party isn’t going to help.

Yes it will. It'll mean it won't be standing in elections, and that's only fair because it's an anti-democratic party... and it will deprive its members of broad protections afforded to parties and remove a unifying banner for them.

Banning anti-democratic institutions in a democracy is not only justified, it is conducive to the democracy's survival. It lifts the bar for getting rid of democracy to be equivalent to not winning in an election but by establishing a second monopoly on violence, a far greater threshold and attempts at which are more straightforward to deter, prosecute and stamp out than being within every TikTok user's first few swipes.

There's nothing that prevents AfD voters from going to other parties, there's plenty, or to voice their concerns in a new party that can be a legitimate part of the democratic system. Changing parties isn't like banning a religion or a creed or a race, a party is hardly more than just a banner, the power of which can change between and during elections, at any time, through a simple act of the mind. Banning the party will absolutely help.

It sends a good message. It doesn't send a message of wanting the silence the concerns of those who voted for the AfD in anything but the short term, it sends the message of 'we hear you, but try again... a bit less fascist-y please'.

Banning AfD is the best short term solution, it needs to be followed by a stronger social focus of the government.

One reason for conservative and right-wing sentiment is fear of the future in the populace. Fear causes people to try to isolate themselves from "others" and wanting to horde and protect their stuff instead of supporting others.

If the government is able to alleviate those fears, they will not see a need for fear anymore. But that is a long process, which constantly gets sabotaged by commercial outrage media, foreign intervention, social media, conservative/right-wing politicians, etc.

There will always be a subsection og the population that adheres to fascist ideas. For a liberal democracy to function, these ideas have to be ostracized to make sure that no fascist party can establish itself in a major way. Some far-right voters will vote for minor far-right parties, some will vote for more moderate conservative parties and some won't vote at all. The key is to keep them from uniting while appearing moderate enough to win over some more moderate voters.

Banning a party has significant affects on far-right organizations and money-streams. Much of their propaganda will become impossible to finance and any successor parties are automatically banned as well. Fascist voters cannot become disillusioned without a ban. Their beliefs are as solid as a flat-earther or anti-vaxer and only destroying their echo chamber has a chance to take them out.

Like I stated in another comment banning them won't be a solution but it will harm them and the fascist movement (just cutting their funding will do a lot).

But yes there's a bigger problem with the growing right-wing tendencies in the society that needs more than this to be addressed

And that’s a symptom of media and social media echo chambers.

The problem is the same all over Europe people are unhappy with immigration from MENA.

None of the centre or left parties will deal with it, except in Denmark and Poland which coincidentally have seen lower votes for far right parties. But that's probably unrelated right.

So yea. Let's decide who should be in power and what they think of is right goes and ban anyone that thinks differently.