Ten years AfD: Increasingly radical

Ten years after it was founded, the AfD has established itself in the German party system. Hardly any of the original founders are still there. In terms of content, the party has moved further and further to the right.

A key moment in the emergence of the AfD was March 25, 2010. In Brussels, the then Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to an EU rescue package for Greece and later said in the Bundestag: “There is no alternative to the aid to be decided for Greece, in order to protect the financial stability of the euro – to secure territory.”

Months later, the term “no alternative” was chosen as the nonsense word of the year. The “Alternative for Germany” was founded on February 6, 2013 in Oberursel, Hesse, to protest against the euro rescue policy.

Group of Eurocritics

It began as a coalition of the most diverse actors, emerging from a group of euro critics such as economics professor Bernd Lucke. But many defectors from bourgeois parties who, for example, no longer felt represented in the Merkel CDU, also came to the AfD.

One of the most prominent will be Alexander Gauland, who announced after the AfD entered the Bundestag for the first time in 2017 to thunderous applause from his fellow campaigners: “We will hunt them down. We will hunt down Mrs. Merkel or whoever and we will protect our country and our people fetch back.” The party had become the third strongest force in the federal election with 12.6 percent. With the formation of the grand coalition in 2018, the AfD became the strongest opposition party in the Bundestag.

core issue of migration

From that point on, there was hardly anything left of the anti-euro AfD party: at least since the refugee crisis of 2015, the AfD has appeared primarily as a right-wing populist party. She also found her core topic in refugee policy. With the focus on the issue of migration and through changes in its membership, the party gradually moved further to the right over the years.

The influence of the far right camp grew. The driving force was the state associations in the eastern German states, which to this day have achieved significantly better election results than the AfD associations in the west. At the head of the völkisch-national “wing”: the Thuringian state chairman Björn Höcke. In 2017, he called for a “180 degree turn in commemoration policy” and spoke of a “monument of shame”, alluding to the Berlin Holocaust memorial.

Höcke later felt misunderstood. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution, however, now lists him as a right-wing extremist. A decision by the federal executive board to exclude him from the AfD had no consequences.

Höcke and the “wing”

Höcke is still there today – not many others. Over the years, AfD chairmen Bernd Lucke have fallen victim to the internal power struggle between the various camps. Frauke Petry. And then Jörg Meuthen, who took up the fight against the radicals in the AfD late and had the “wing” officially dissolved. Meuthen linked his resignation and resignation in January 2022 with bitter allegations. The AfD now has “clearly totalitarian overtones” and parts of the party are “not grounded in the free democratic basic order”.

A year after his retirement, Meuthen said in retrospect: “I didn’t think – and I was wrong about that – that the ‘wing’ would ever be able to achieve this dominance. And whoever is circling around at the top of the party now: He’s doing it by Höcke’s grace.”

This refers to Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla. The party and parliamentary group leaders are satisfied with the current situation of the AfD. After the end of the corona pandemic, the party is now increasingly focusing on social issues such as increased energy prices, but is also adopting pro-Russian tones.

She can score loudly with it ARD Germany trend especially in the east German federal states. In Saxony and Thuringia, the AfD had already become the strongest force in the last federal election, nationwide it is currently stable at 15 percent.

Participation in East Germany?

The fact that the entire party is now being observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist does not seem to bother their core electorate. AfD federal spokesman Chrupalla sees no reason for this anyway: “I can only invite the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to our events myself. He should take a close look at the AfD and then he will find that there is nothing anti-democratic there.”

Chrupalla and Weidel already have their next goal in mind: government participation in eastern Germany. In 2024 there will be elections in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia.

The political scientist Wolfgang Schröder from the University of Kassel sees no chance for this: “Because there is a lack of personnel as well as the mentality and the attitude to our Basic Law and above all to plural and compromise-oriented democracy.” Rather, good election results for the AfD should lead to multi-party coalitions stabilizing.

On the tenth anniversary of its existence, the AfD has established itself in the German party landscape. She sits in almost all state parliaments and in the Bundestag and neither survey nor election results indicate that she will disappear again in the foreseeable future.