Do they? Even without doing anything at all they're polling in first place nationwide.

And they're losing a lot of people who'd otherwise support them even while they, as you say, pretend to be anti-immigration.

The CDU is still staunchly pro-mass migration. Again: Merz's speeches are just PR and not representative of what the party is actually doing where its in power. The people in power behind Merz are still fully in the Merkel camp.

Yes, I'm not naive to think that the 'party leader' is actually in charge, especially when what he says goes against elite consensus. But even so, it is far superior to have anti-immigration be the mainstream and the majority (even if they just pretend as you say) than for it to be the fringe position of the "Nazis" and the "center-right" being the openly pro-invasion party.