Alternative for Germany
[52][53] In February 2013, the group decided to found a new party to compete in the 2013 federal election; according to a leaked email from Lucke, the Free Voters leadership declined to join forces.Economist Joachim Starbatty, along with Jörn Kruse, Helga Luckenbach, Dirk Meyer, and Roland Vaubel, were elected to the party's scientific advisory board.[58] In June 2013, Bernd Lucke gave a question and answer session organized by the Conservative Party-allied Bruges Group think tank in Portcullis House, London.[59] In a detailed report in the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in April 2013, the paper's Berlin-based political correspondent Majid Sattar revealed that the SPD and CDU had conducted opposition research to blunt the growth and attraction of AfD.[78] The inclusion of AfD in the ECR group was said to have caused mild tensions between the German chancellor Angela Merkel and the British prime minister David Cameron.[107] The party approved a platform that, according to The Wall Street Journal, "urges Germany to close its borders to asylum applicants, end sanctions on Russia and to leave the EU if Berlin fails to retrieve national sovereignty from Brussels, as well as to amend the country's constitution to allow people born to non-German parents to have their German citizenship revoked if they commit serious crimes.On 6 November 2019, Petry announced that the Blue Party would dissolve by the end of the year [113] In 2018, André Poggenburg, AfD's regional leader of the eastern Saxony-Anhalt state, resigned his post after making racist remarks concerning Turks and immigrants with dual citizenship.[168] At that time, the party also advocated support for Swiss-style semi-direct democracy, major reforms to the Eurozone, opposition to immigration, and opposed same-sex marriage.[173] In 2015, more moderate members, including founder and former chairman Bernd Lucke, left AfD after Frauke Petry was elected chairperson to found a new party, the Alliance for Progress and Renewal, which was renamed the Liberal Conservative Reformers in November 2016.This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then.[193][194] Political commentators and analysts have described the party as containing two prominent factions: subscribers to the more dovish and moderate national-conservative Alternative Mitte (Alternative Center) wing, such as parliamentarians Jörg Meuthen, Alice Weidel, and Beatrix von Storch, who oppose collaboration with movements or figures like Pegida founder Lutz Bachmann;[195][196] and the more hardline identitarian Der Flügel (The Wing) faction, comprising figures at state level such as Thuringia state leader Björn Höcke.[22] In January 2017, Höcke in a speech stated, in reference to the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, that "Germans are the only people in the world who plant a monument of shame in the heart of the capital" and criticized this "laughable policy of coming to terms with the past".[22] According to a study conducted by the Forsa Institute in 2019, while 2% of the German population agreed with the statement that "the Holocaust is propaganda of the Allied Powers," that proportion was 15% among AfD supporters."[203] In 2017, ten AfD Bundestag members were found to have participated in a closed Facebook group named "the Patriots" in which, among other things, antisemitic, racist, pro-Nazi and conspiratorial posts were widespread.One meme posted therein, which showed Holocaust victim Anne Frank's face edited on a pizza box labelled "The Oven-fresh", gained particular media attention.[208] Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, stated in 2024 that he is "concerned that the AfD would deliberately act against Jewish life, if it fits into their concept", and that the party offers antisemites a home.The study's author, Professor Lars Renmann, stated that "despite some lip service to the contrary, hostility towards Israel, Holocaust relativization, antisemitic conspiracy thinking and anti-Jewish images occupy a prominent place" in the AfD.The party favours banning the burqa, the Islamic call to prayer in public areas and the construction of new minarets, ending foreign funding of mosques and putting imams through a state vetting procedure.[231] Wolfgang Gedeon, an elected AfD representative, has included feminism, along with "sexualism" and "migrationism", in an ideology he calls "green communism" that he opposes, and argues for family values as part of German identity.[251] In August 2023 a journalist investigation was published by The Insider, describing how money was funnelled from Moscow to AfD politicians who initiated a constitutional complaint in Germany against the supplies of weapons for Ukraine.[275][277][278] In December 2024, the main party of the AfD announced its intention to cut ties with the JA in connection to its classification by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.The Flemish Vlaams Belang criticized Krah's words as "increasingly problematic" but declined to immediately expel the AfD faction, stating they preferred to review the situation after the election.[321] In 2013, AfD party organisers sent out the message that they are not trying to attract right-wing radicals and toned down rhetoric on their Facebook page following media allegations that it too closely evoked the language of the far right.Although a large proportion of the candidates are not openly racist, some relativize Germany's role in World War II or call for the recognition of a "Cult of Guilt".[327] In 2018, Tino Chrupalla, the current co-leader of the AfD, gave an interview to holocaust denier, antisemite and right-wing extremist Nikolai Nerling, which was uploaded to YouTube.As such, the interview was cited in the 2019 Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution report on the AfD as evidence of the party's "Connections to the framework of a so-called new right or right-wing populist 'resistance milieu'".[328][329] On 24 June 2024, it was announced that two parliamentary groups consisting of members of the AfD and Die Heimat formerly the NPD, had been formed in the Brandenburg town of Lauchhammer and the district of Oberspreewald-Lausitz.[330] In 2016, AfD MEP Marcus Pretzell was expelled from the party after he said that German borders should be defended from incursion by refugees "with armed force as a measure of last resort".[334] Hans-Olaf Henkel asked members of the party not to join the demonstrations, telling Der Tagesspiegel that he believed it could not be ruled out that they had "xenophobic or even racist connotations".In May 2024, Höcke was convicted and fined €13,000 by the state court in Halle for deliberately using a banned slogan "Alles für Deutschland", associated with the Nazi party's paramilitary wing, in a May 2021 campaign speech.
AFD (disambiguation)Tino ChrupallaAlice WeidelStephan BrandnerPeter BoehringerKay GottschalkAlexander GaulandBernd LuckeKonrad AdamChristian Democratic Union of GermanyBerlinThink tankDesiderius-Erasmus-StiftungYouth wingYoung Alternative for GermanyIdeologyRight-wing populismNational conservatismEuroscepticismPolitical positionFar-rightEuropean affiliationEurope of Sovereign NationsEuropean Parliament groupEurope of Sovereign Nations GroupLight blueBundestagState ParliamentsEuropean ParliamentPolitics of GermanyPolitical partiesElectionsGermanright-wing populistEuroscepticimmigration into GermanyMuslimAngela Merkelthere is no alternativeFederal Office for the Protection of the Constitutionextremistelectoral threshold2013 German federal election2014 European Parliament election in GermanyEuropean Conservatives and ReformistsGerman state2017 German federal election19th Bundestag2021 federal electionEurozonecentre-rightpro-Europeaneconomically liberalconservativeEuropean UnionGerman nationalismVölkisch nationalismopposing Islamopposing immigrationwelfare chauvinismdenial of human-caused global warmingsupporting closer relations with RussiaPEGIDANeue RechteIdentitarian movementhistorical revisionismxenophobicstate offices for the protection of the constitutionJörg Meuthenliberal democratic basic orderEast GermanySaxonyThuringiastrongmaneastern statesEast BerlinBad Nauheimeurozone crisismanifestounsuitableLower SaxonyFree VotersFrauke Petrystates of GermanyDarmstadtDavid CameronConservative PartyBruges GroupPortcullis HouseFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungopposition researchPirate Party GermanyFederal Constitutional CourtFree Democratic Party2013 Bavaria state election2013 Hesse state electionFederal Constitutional Court of GermanyFrankenstolz ArenaAschaffenburgBavariaEuropean flagUK Independence PartyHans-Olaf HenkelMembers of the European parliament2014 Saxony state electionLandtag of Saxony2014 ThuringianBrandenburg state electionHamburg state electionHamburg Parliament2015 Bremen state electionde factoRussiaBeatrix von StorchMarcus PretzellAlliance for Progress and RenewalLiberal Conservative ReformersFreedom Party of AustriaEurope of Freedom and Direct DemocracyEuropean migrant crisisBaden-WürttembergRhineland-PalatinateSaxony-Anhalt2016 Saxony-Anhalt state election2016 Baden-Württemberg state election2016 Rhineland-Palatinate state election