exclusive
The AfD leaders and their youth organization Junge Alternative are arguing about the demarcation from right-wing extremism. The focus is on YES functionary Leisten, for whom the federal executive board is now demanding a two-year ban from office.
A thumb connecting with the index finger – many know it as a sign to signal an “okay” – “I’m fine”. But in recent years, increasingly fascist movements have been using the symbol as a kind of identifier. The fingers should thus indicate the letters W and P – for “White Power”, “White Power”. Anna Leisten, national board member of the AfD youth organization “Junge Alternative” and its Brandenburg state head, showed this sign openly at the end of an interview with the right-wing extremist magazine “Compact”. She has stated that the sign meant no more to her than “went well”.
The Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution judges this differently. He considers such gestures and many other statements to be extremist and has observed the JA state association in Brandenburg since July of this year as proven right-wing extremist efforts.
Requested to submit
But another body now apparently has problems with the behavior of the young YES politician: the federal executive board of the AfD. On Monday, the AfD federal board decided to convert what it considered to be too mild a warning from the AfD state association in Brandenburg to an application for a two-year ban from office. In addition, Leisten was asked by resolution to “resign all offices in the ‘Young Alternative’ immediately”.
But the case of Leisten has long been about more: It’s about how far to the right the party wants to position itself in its statements and gestures. The conflict is clear from statements written by various party bodies on the Leisten case. She herself has also expressed herself in writing. The papers are there WDR and NDR before.
Leisten calls for “defensiveness”.
Leisten justifies himself in a statement. She writes that the hand sign should simply mean “it’s going”. She also puts the statement of the YES “Be defensive. Form community!” from March of this year in the context of an allegedly necessary self-defence. She speaks of an environment of daily migrant and left-wing extremist attacks. It is therefore “logically necessary for young people to be trained to defend themselves,” says Leisten.
She uses this to justify the fact that the JA now offers boxing training or that members in JA T-shirts take part in military-style competitions such as cross-country obstacle courses. Defensiveness is necessary “if you are involved in the oppositional milieu of the AfD,” writes Leisten in her statement. But she has never called for violence and does not tolerate any violence in the ranks of the YES Brandenburg. They do not intend to “become a militant paramilitary organization or anything like that.”
The fact that the above-mentioned sporting event was named “Ostfront 2025 training camp” by the JA is what Leisten calls “jokingly” and refers “to the war rhetoric that is widespread in the mainstream media of our time”. She also emphasizes: “With my positions and actions, I do not move outside the usual party framework”.
JA sharply criticizes the party executive
The federal executive board of the correctional institution also uses this argument in its statement. Any criticism of immigration policy and migration is criminalized with the buzzword human dignity. As an opposition, it could not be an option to stop talking about “imported violence” or “stabbers” in the future. The JA cannot refrain from such polemics, “since they are part of the brand essence of the AfD and the JA”.
The JA even escalates its criticism of the party executive: “However, the federal executive should do so […] assessing it differently would, among other things, call into question the entire list of candidates for the elections to the European Parliament, which was drawn up only recently, since the majority of the candidates advertised themselves using precisely such terms (great exchange, remigration, etc.) – without the intervention of the party executive”.
In fact, numerous such formulations were used during the two-weekend gathering in Magdeburg. The JA is obviously of the opinion that the representatives elected by the federal party represent the same extremist positions as they do. The JA had already been classified by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as proven right-wing extremists in May, although the AfD is suing. The Federal Office has therefore suspended the application of the observation level until the legal dispute has been decided.
Hitler salutes on the edge of federal congress
A limit for the YES to the right is only exceeded with “explicit gestures such as a Hitler salute or implicit symbols such as the number combination “88”. But exactly such explicit gestures are said to have occurred on the sidelines of the federal congress of the YES last October in Apolda. Two visitors reported WDR and NDRthat in the evening there was a party in the garden of one of the hotels used by conference participants and that Hitler salutes were also shown at a late hour. They submit two photos to show the situation. When asked, the AfD explained that it was not aware of such an alleged event.
This photo is intended to show Hitler salutes on the sidelines of the JA Congress in Apolda in October 2022.
At its federal congress in Apolda, the JA also offensively surrounded itself with several front organizations already classified as right-wing extremists, a network of new right-wing publishers and associations. A fact that Leisten explicitly praised in a video.
Some AfD federal executives fear that the JA will become a growing threat to the party through such aggressively demonstrated connections. In the debate in the AfD national board on how to deal with bars, questions arose about how far to the right AfD officials should or may publicly position themselves – in statements, in gestures or through networks in the run-up to the party. According to participants, it was also about the extent to which the YES still had a future in this form. Officially, however, the AfD declares on request: “The federal executive board of the AfD is convinced that the young alternative is firmly on the ground of our free-democratic basic order”.