Alternative for Germany

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The Alternative for Germany (German: Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) is a far-right populist and extreme right, right-libertarian, socially conservative, Islamophobic, Eurosceptic, and reactionary political party in Germany.^[1] They are the one-phrase answer to the question, "Why has no movement similar to UKIP, Front National, or FPÖ taken root in Germany?"

History[edit]

In 2013, several conservatives and reactionaries on the right wing of the CDU, as well as unaffiliated people who had had sympathies for the CDU in the past, were dissatisfied with the Euro policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and what they deemed a cultural and political shift of her party to the left. As there was at the time no right-wing alternative to the CDU, they set out to provide exactly that for the 2013 elections, which were widely assumed to be a done deal for the CDU and Merkel, with the only open question being whether they would be able to go at it alone or whether they'd need a coalition partner.^{[note 1]} They grouped around one Bernd Lucke and several other figures thrown in mostly to disguise Lucke's near-dictatorial reign over his party. At this point, they had a conservative sociopolitical profile combined with a strongly market-liberal program. ^[2]

The revolution eats its children[edit]

To the surprise of many—though not its members, who had believed all polls to be faked and predicted double-digit results^[3]—they polled 4.7%^[4] at the September 2013 federal elections—the best federal result for any newly-founded party in German history. The higher success of more intensely right-wing populist stances in Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg during the state elections led to internal fights within the party between the "old style conservatives" who wanted to focus on Euro policies and Euroscepticism and the hard-right members who wanted to include all kinds of batshit insanity, from anti-wind energy activity to criticism of a "gay agenda", "gender mainstreaming", or immigration policies. The "Erfurter Resolution", pushed by Björn Höcke, openly criticized the moderate position of Bernd Lucke and is considered the founding document of the AfD's right-wing "Der Flügel" (The Wing)^[5]. Needless to say, the more people uttered these hard-right stances openly, the more hard-right members were attracted to the party, and in a short while, Lucke and his guys were in the minority and lost the ensuing power struggle. One Frauke Petry managed to edge him out for the leadership role and promptly proceeded to kick him out of the party. Et voila, the German FPÖ is born.^[2]

Bernd Lucke, its original founder, went on to create the Allianz für Fortschritt und Aufbruch (or Alliance for Progress and Renewal) on July 19, 2015, taking a lot of the European fraction of the AfD with him. The party promptly went on to total irrelevance despite keeping the anti-Euro stance while arguably down-toning the more ridiculous anti-foreigner and conspiracy-theorist ideas.

History repeats itself[edit]

One would think that the internal controversy would impact the image of the party negatively, and for a short time in early 2015, they stayed under the 5% threshold necessary to gain seats in the Bundestag.^{[note 2]} But starting in September 2015, the refugee crisis offered a huge opportunity. Using xenophobic and Islamophobic fearmongering,^[6] they were able to gather voters alienated by Chancellor Angela Merkel's more open-armed approach. During the state elections in 2016, the AfD consistently reached double-digit numbers, rising up to 24.3% in Saxony-Anhalt. Contrary to the real balance of power between the moderate and the extremist wing, they still tried to portray themselves as market-liberal, in the spirit of their founders, brushing over internal difficulties and connections to Pegida and the NPD. In the 2017 state elections, their results were slightly worse due to internal squabbles leading to the replacement of Frauke Petry as floor leader with Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel. Incurable absolutely-not-Nazi Björn Höcke referring to the Berlin Holocaust memorial as a "memorial of disgrace"^[7] and Gauland calling to be proud of the Wehrmacht^[8] probably didn't boost them either. Surprisingly, they nevertheless managed to score 12.6% of the votes in the federal election that year, surpassing all other opposition parties.^[9] After the election, a butthurt Petry pulled a Lucke and quickly disappeared into the abyss of political irrelevance, dragging her newly founded Blue Party with her.^[10][2]

It can always get worse[edit]

In 2018 and 2019, the party kept on being successful, entering the two last remaining state parliaments in Bavaria and Hesse, while still getting higher election results in the east. The deep inner divide between the moderate and ethnic-nationalistic camps, however, could not be fixed anymore. After the right-wing "Flügel", assembling 20–40% of the party members, was classified by Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesverfassungsschutz, as confirmed right-wing extremist in May 2020, AfD speaker Jörg Meuthen barely managed to kick out its co-leader Andreas Kalbitz and force the "Flügel" to formally disassemble itself. Höcke, the other co-leader, already went through an ultimately hopeless expulsion proceeding from 2015 to 2018, and thus was obviously invulnerable in an even more radicalized party climate. And because of the strong gains of the generally more extreme East German local organizations, former Flügel members did not really feel any kind of pressure to leave the party and, for example, join the NPD. In February 2022, Meuthen, being the most important member of the more moderate faction, forfeited and left the party.^[2] During the chaotic party congress in Riesa (Saxony), the mask ultimately fell. Björn Höcke and his right-wing friends removed a known neo-Nazi pseudo-labor union from the incompatibility list, made sure that no moderate was on the national board, and decreed that the AfD might also be led by a single person, paving the way for a possible candidature of Höcke as party executive in 2024.^[11]

Discussing ethnic cleansing "master plans"[edit]

A protest in Heidelberg, Germany on the November 2023 meeting between AfD and right-wing extremists

On January 10 2024, the German investigative journalism newsroom Correctiv published a report on a secret meeting that happened in November 25 2023 between prominent Alternative for Germany leaders and far-right activists, most notably the identitarian Martin Sellner. During the meeting, Sellner discussed a "remigration" plan that targeted three groups (asylum seekers, foreigners with the right to remain, and "unassimilated citizens"), even if they were German citizens. (Critics believed they had a better term for this plan: ethnic cleansing.) There was no push-back from the AfD members present — in fact, one of the members present (Gerrit Huy) stated that she had been pursuing this goal for a long time. Sellner even floated the idea of a "model state" in North Africa where you could send up to 2 million migrants to. (Never mind the similarities to Adolf Hitler's Madagascar Plan — e.g. Hitler's plan to forcibly relocate German Jews to Madagascar).^[12][13]

This caused uproar in much of Germany, where the horrors of the Nazi past still weighed heavily. An estimated 1.4 million people rallied in cities across the country to march against fascism, with renewed calls to ban Alternative for Germany outright.^[13][14] Some protests grew so big, they had to be ended early for safety reasons.^[15] German chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the "remigration" plan and even took part in one of the demonstrations against it.^[16]

The participants of the meeting, of course, disputed Correctiv's account of the events. (Although one of the meeting attendees, Hans Christian Limmer, who part-owned a burger chain called Hans im Glück, resigned from his position after the report was published, purportedly in a bid to limit any fallout to the burger chain).^[17]

Landhaus Adlon[edit]

The guesthouse called Landhaus Adlon on the lake Lehnitzsee and an adjacent private villa owned by Mathilda Huss in Potsdam has been since 2021 a secret meeting place for AfD party officials, including its youth organization Junge Alternative and Generation Identity. Notable guests include Martin Sellner and Simon Kaupert. Emil Kirkegaard (aka William Engman) also lives on the same premises:

According to research by ZEIT ONLINE, Mathilda Huss is closely connected to the right-wing extremist scene. The entrepreneur already runs a hotel with her partner in Potsdam, and her private villa is also located on the same site. AfD politicians and officials from the AfD youth organization Junge Alternative, the Values ​​Union and the right-wing Friedrich A. von Hayek Society are said to have met on this extensive area in recent years. For three years, Huss has also been supporting the extreme right-wing Dane Emil Kirkegaard, who also lives on the premises of the guesthouse on Lehnitzsee called Landhaus Adlon. In the country house Adlon, the private villa of Mathilda Huss and her partner as well as the other property, other right-wing extremists such as the new right-wing strategist Götz Kubitschek, the editor-in-chief of the Compact magazine, Jürgen Elsässer, and activists of the Identitarian movement such as Martin Sellner, Mario Müller or Simon Kaupert may have been guests. Kaupert lives in Reinsberg, Saxony. Representatives of the ethnic right-wing extremist wing in the AfD such as Dennis Hohloch and Stefan Kotré are also said to have visited Mathilda Huss in Potsdam; Gunnar Lindemann shot videos on the property's premises. Several eyewitnesses confirmed this to ZEIT ONLINE in affidavits; some of them can prove the visits with chats, photos and videos.^[18]

Political positions[edit]

• The AfD is against renewable energy, particularly wind power, which they claim emits dangerous "infrasound" that is blamed for numerous ills^[19]:206.
• In general, the AfD opposes any type of family that is not nuclear enough, as shown by their funding policy that wants to measure how important a family is by the number of children that that family has.^[20]
• The AfD was founded on the premise that the Euro is bad. Needless to say, they want to either get rid of the Euro and reintroduce the Reichsmark Deutsche Mark or split it into a North and South Euro.^[19]:50-51
• They are not entirely sure if they simply want to dissolve the European Union or turn it into a "federation of European nations". And they want to build a wall at the EU border.^[21]
• The AfD is opposed to immigration and has been malicious enough to put sentences on their electoral material that could be^[22]—and in some cases are^[23]—straight-up lifted from parties even more right-wing than themselves.
• Several high-ranking members of the AfD have cooperated with and spoken at demonstrations of Pegida, an anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, and generally anti-everything "movement" that held rallies mostly in Dresden, especially throughout late 2014 and 2015.^[24]
• They claim to be in favor of holding referenda on several different issues, notably immigration or the Euro.^[19]:13-14
• They believe that all other parties are forming a cartel against them and pushing leftist issues, notably feminism, together^:24.
• Several high-ranking AfD members (most notably Alexander Gauland, a former CDU member) hold pro-Russian positions in the whole Ukraine business, and some like to quote RT and/or give them interviews. Along with representatives of other far-right parties, AfD members acted as observers in the very flawed 2014 Crimean referendum on joining Russia.^[25]
• Most AFD members have been noted to be standard neo-fascists rather than Neo-Nazis, but have inherited some base ideas from the Nazis (such as extreme natalism, ethnonationalism, and xenophobia).^[26]

Antisemitism[edit]

While the AfD tries to appear solidaric with Jews and Israel, antisemitism lies at its programmatic core. The appearance is only maintained to support their islamophobia by blaming Muslims and/or leftists for hostility towards Jews and to be able to invoke a "judeo-christian culture" whenever it is deemed to be fitting.^[27] In reality, it is the AfD itself that is constantly ignoring cases of antisemitic statements and Holocaust denial among functionaries.^[28] High-ranking members, especially Björn Höcke, are spreading implicit or explicit antisemitism (for example, by invoking the "globalist elite" or trying to ban shechita, a form of ritual slaughtering, because think of the animals) or attacking famous Jews like George Soros or Anetta Kahane with stereotypes and caricatures.^[29] There is, however, the JAfD (Jews in the AfD), which has to date 19 members.^[30]

However, some in the AFD's youth wing have suggested placing Jews in ghettos and immigrants and foreigners (Muslims, Africans, Arabs) in labor camps as a "final solution" (sound familiar?).^[31]

Islamophobia[edit]

The anti-Islamic hate in the AfD is more overt than their antisemitism. According to top AfD officials, Muslims cannot invoke religious freedom because Islam as a whole is supposedly not a religion, but a political ideology that is always intellectually linked to the takeover of the state. To justify their proposed bans on minarets, muezzin calls, and full-body veils, they say that Germany is both secular and Christian.^[32] In their election program, they regurgitate the whole variety of fearmongering, from "the constant danger to our lives by jihadists"^{[note 3]} to their proposal to deport "criminal clan members", which would effectively result in people getting higher sentences based on their last name or the background of their family members.^[35]

Queerphobia[edit]

The AfD claims that sex education, especially using new standards for teaching that dare to mention gays, constitutes an "early sexualization" of children and promotes some insidious "gay agenda"^[19]:113-114. Needless to say, a party of mostly older white males who might remember the Nazi era a bit too fondly is uncomfortable with homosexuality and opposes any form of family that does not consist of a white father, a white mother, two blonde, blue-eyed children, and a Toyota Land Cruiser. This does not keep them from using gays (only white ones, of course) to divide the supposedly liberal and tolerant mainstream German culture from the evil, bigoted Muslims, while openly pursuing anti-LGBTQ+ policies^[36]. They are extremely paranoid about "gendering"^{[note 4]} and other forms of gender-neutral language, viewing them as a dictatorial abuse of the German language.^[37] The AfD wants to repeal anti-discrimination laws and cooperates with homophobic politicians and activists in Hungary, Russia, and Uganda. AfD politicians spouting extremely queerphobic statements is more of a rule than an exception.^[38]

Electoral success[edit]

Their results in the most recent state elections vary between 5.3% (Hamburg, 2020) and 27.5% (Saxony, 2019). In the 2021 federal election, they received 10.3% of overall votes, but managed to be the second strongest party in four of five east-German states and, with 27.0%, the strongest party in Saxony.^[39] In the 2024 European Parliament election, they won all but two Landkreise (districts) and four district-free cities in the East, winning at least 27% in all five former East German states, whilst in all Western states bar Saarland, they remained under 15%. ^[40]

...Showing the long-term effectiveness of anti-fascist barriers.

Their electorate is mostly East German (they get around twice as many shares in the east than in the west), two-thirds male, not very young and not very old. They tend to be more dissatisfied, hostile towards migration, and closer to extreme right positions^[39] and conspiracy theories.^[41] Although they are materially not much poorer than average, they fear social relegation and are uncertain about their own future.^[42] While the AfD's strongest regions in the east are economically weakening, rural, and suffer from emigration,^{[note 5]} in the west, they are mostly present in poor and/or industrial locations, such as Saarland (former coal-mining area) and Ruhrpott, namely Gelsenkirchen.^[39]

Many of the AfD’s voters are disenfranchised citizens who are fed up with the incompetent neoliberal centrists in power, and want legitimate change. However, the infighting amongst the German left (mostly on the topic of immigration) and the AfD promising a “revolutionary change that will help the average German” and hiding their bigotry behind the guise of well meaning populism, has caused the average German voter to choose the AfD as a seemingly better alternative as they feel they have little to no other options.^[43]

Extremism[edit]

Although AfD has long been suspected to be an extremist group, and parts of its organization have been officially labeled as such (e.g., the youth division), it was not until March 2021 that the entire organization was labeled as a suspected extremist group by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).^[44] The decision was made based on "two years of information gathering by the intelligence agencies, culminating in an 800-page report."^[45] This comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody who is familiar with the alt-right.

Confirming this, AfD politicians secretly met with members of the far-right racist Identitarian Movement in November 2023. The meeting included the Austrian Movement's leader, Martin Sellner. The meeting discussed "re-migration", the forced return of migrants to their origin countries, including even those with European citizenship (i.e., ethnic cleansing).^[46] The meeting has fueled a push to ban AfD as a political party in Germany.^[47]

At a single AfD event in 2024, the BBC uncovered three AfD politicians with extremist ties:

1. Matthias Helferich (1988–) was elected to the Bundestag in 2021 but was barred from joining the AfD coalition due to his offensive Facebook posts dating back to 2016. He had claimed to be the friendly face of National Socialism and compared himself to Roland Freisler, a prominent Nazi judge. In Helferich's defense he claimed, that it was just parody. Helferich's speech at the event was about 'remigration', a euphemism for mass deportation of immigrants.^[48]
2. Jean-Pascal Hohm has held numerous roles within AfD. Hohm has been involved with several extremist groups, including Ein Prozent, Zukunft Heimat, and the Identitarian movement. Hohm is a believer in the The Great Replacement conspiracy theory.^[48]
3. Benedikt Kaiser works in the Bundestag for AfD MP Jürgen Pohl. Kaiser moved among neo-Nazi circles from 2006-2011, including the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD), which later became Die Heimat.^[48][49] Kaiser received lengthy praise from adjudicated fascist Björn Höcke.^[48]

Worst of[edit]

• In 2015, they requested that gay people in Thuringia be counted.^[51]
• An AfD MP in Saxony officially asked the state government about chemtrails.^[52]
• The World Women's Day was vigorously protested by the youth wing of the party. Members claimed, for example, that "we don't need no feminism, because I like men to open doors for me".^[53][54]
• An AfD city councilor of Baden-Baden let himself get caught painting swastikas and "Fuck UA" on two Ukrainian cars.^[55]
• Ahead the 2024 European Parliament election, party's top list candidate Max Krah said in an interview to Italian newspaper Repubblica that he wouldn't consider someone who wore a Waffen-SS uniform automatically a criminal.^[56][57] This caused a lot of other European right-populist parties to disassociate from AfD, so in the next European Parliament, they ended up forming their own political group with other ultranationalist Russophilic parties.^[58]

See also[edit]

• Bjorn Hocke - one of their most infamous members.
• GegenUni — a fake university with AfD lecturers.
• Crank magnetism — a surprisingly common occurrence for them.
• Nazism — which they have nothing to do with. Honest. Großdeutsches Versprechen! Oops...
• PEGIDA - another far-right German movement, and closely allied with them.
• Vladimir Putin — their great role model and donor.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]