No one was chairman of the AfD for as long as Jörg Meuthen, who had recently been very isolated, and no one tried so persistently – albeit late – to contain the extreme forces. His retirement is a grim testimony.
from
Jens Schneider
It wasn’t long ago that Jörg Meuthen emphasized that his career with the AfD should not end like that of his predecessors. No, the longtime leader of this troubled and often unsavory party has pledged to stay on, even after the previously announced departure from the top. Unlike the chairman Bernd Lucke and the party leader Frauke Petry before him, he would not go completely. Meuthen acted as if someone else should just continue to lead the party in the future. Things are different now, and that’s not really surprising. His opponents in the party had just shown him that he no longer counted for them and that he was also largely isolated at the top.