(„Alternative for Germany“)

**Strength:**
32,000 (January 2021)

**short description:**
**I. Party History
**1. prehistory**
The “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) is the parliamentary arm of the extreme right in Germany.
Its founding was preceded, among other things, by the publication of the book “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (Germany is abolishing itself) by the social democrat Thilo Sarrazin in 2010. This racist work reached a circulation of 1.6 million copies.
Because of this success, a discussion developed in the bourgeois media as to whether a “Sarrazin Party” was not needed.
At the same time, a minority faction of German capital and many economics professors turned against the euro bailout policy from 2010.

**2nd founding phase under Bernd Lucke (2012-2015)**
In September 2012, the “Wahlalternative 2013” (WA2013) was formed, out of which the AfD was founded on February 6, 2013.
Its ranks included many economics professors, which earned the AfD the nickname “Professors’ Party.”
In addition, there were right wing conservatives disappointed by the CDU/CSU and national liberals disappointed by the FDP.
But party founder and then chairman Bernd Lucke, an economics professor from Hamburg, also opened the party to ultra-right forces.
For example, hundreds of members of the Islamophobic micro-party “Die Freiheit” joined the AfD.
In the federal election on September 22, 2013, the AfD received 4.7% of the vote, narrowly missing entry into the German Bundestag.
In the European election on May 25, 2014, however, it achieved 7% of the vote. The seven elected deputies become members of the euroskeptic-conservative group “European Conservatives and Reformists” (ECR).
The AfD’s most important theme in 2013 was a nationalist critique of the EU from the right. Since 2014, they switched to the topic of migration.
Overall, the majority of the party had a national-neoliberal profile at the time.

**Phase 3 under Frauke Petry (2015-17)**
In March 2015, the völkisch party wing leadership of Björn Höcke published the “Erfurt Resolution,” calling the AfD a “resistance movement against the further erosion of Germany’s sovereignty and identity.”
In July 2015, Lucke was voted out of office, leaving the party and founding an unsuccessful split, the “Alliance for Progress and Awakening.”
The deselection was the result of Frauke Petry’s alliance with the party’s völkisch Höcke wing.
Frauke Petry is the AfD’s state chairwoman in Saxony.
Under her, the party is moving closer to right-wing street movements like PEGIDA. Some therefore speak of a “PEGIDA party.”
From 2017 onward, Islam became an important political issue as an enemy after the EU and migration.

**4th phase under Jörg Meuthen (2017-2022)**
In 2017, Frauke Petry lost an inner-party power struggle to an alliance of Björn Höcke, Jörg Meuthen and Alexander Gauland. She left the party and founded the “Blue Party” as a spin-off.
Since 2018, parts of the AfD have been monitored by the domestic intelligence service (“Verfassungsschutz”).
From 2020, the party tried to establish itself as a representation of vaccination and corona measures opponents.

**5. The post-Meuthen era (from 2022)**
Jörg Meuthen resigned from the AfD at the end of January 2022. In the meantime, the wing around Björn Höcke has become so influential that it determines the agenda and the leadership personnel.

**II. Contents**
The AfD represents various forms of nationalism. Meanwhile, a völkisch nationalism is dominant.
Otherwise, the party primarily represents enemy images: Feminism, Islam, the European Union, the establishment (old parties, media, etc.), “political correctness,” etc.

**III Character of the AfD**
In the course of its history, the AfD has become increasingly radicalized to the right. It has a right-wing populist style that flexibly chooses its topics.
The wing around Björn Höcke is relatively openly anti-system and can be characterized as fascist. The latter sees the party as a “fundamental-oppositional movement party” (Höcke).

Overall, the AfD is a rallying point for different currents of the Christian, conservative and extreme right.
The constant struggles for power and direction within the party have led to strong discontinuities among the party’s personnel.

**Finances:**
Media resesarch showed that the billionaire Baron August von Finck jr. (* 1930, „Mövenpick-Milliardär“), living in Switzerland since 1999, financend the AfD with 100,000 or probably with millions of Euro.

**Youth wing:**
„Junge Alternative“ („Young Alternative“)