In Germany, a political reality is taking shape that was long unthinkable. For the first time since World War II, a far-right party is close enough to power that it is planning to govern rather than just grow and disrupt. To prepare for a scenario where it might rule and fill public offices, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) is professionalizing its internal structure. However, sleek organization does not equal moderate politics. On the contrary, it might be about to morph into its most potent form yet: effective and radical.
The AfD has reached a critical crossroads. Despite being classified as “right-wing extremist” by German domestic intelligence, it is now the largest opposition party in the country’s parliament and leading in many polls. Next year, five of Germany’s 16 states are holding regional elections. In two of them — both in the former East Germany — polling suggested it might win with nearly 40 percent of the vote, putting it within reach of an outright majority. Yet as a young party founded in 2013, it has in the past lacked the personnel to fill positions — a situation it is now seeking to rectify at speed.
A crucial step is the foundation at the end of last month of a new youth wing called Generation Germany. Its predecessor, the Young Alternative, dissolved earlier this year after proving difficult for the party to control and frequently making headlines with extremist rhetoric. The new group is explicitly an arm of the party, only open to members.
AfD leader Alice Weidel envisions it as an ideological training ground for recruits, telling the young men and women at the founding conference: “You will take over political responsibility, and the first step for this is a successful youth wing.”
The new setup is indeed more professional. Generation Germany’s freshly elected leader, 28-year-old Jean-Pascal Hohm, has the well-groomed look that is becoming common for the European far right’s next generation. And he is the closest thing the AfD has to a party lifer, having joined in 2014 at the age of 17. He agrees with Weidel that the core aim of his organization is to “develop the officeholders, the elected representatives and hopefully also the future members of the government.”
His measured tone belies the nature of his politics. With a history of ties to extreme-right groups, Hohm openly admits he has no intention of making the new youth wing any more moderate than the old one. He told the German press this change was about structure, while “we will not distance ourselves from demands we have made for years.”
This pattern of packaging old radicalism in new professionalism is mirrored in the AfD itself. In the summer, it adopted a new code of conduct for members aimed at achieving a more unified, moderate appearance for the parliamentary group.
Asked if this indicated a less extreme political course, Weidel said she could not see “the slightest reason why we should moderate.” Her party continues to be the lawmaker group most often called to order in parliament. Its program is holding on to radical concepts such as “remigration,” a term associated with Austrian activist Martin Sellner, who advocates deporting illegal immigrants as well as people with residency status or even citizenship.
So far the AfD’s refusal to shift toward the mainstream has not done it any harm. Not only is it riding high in the polls, but there are indications that it is beginning to attract powerful support. The latest US National Security Strategy suggested US President Donald Trump’s administration would seek to “cultivate resistance” to “Europe’s current trajectory,” indicating support for the far right across the continent. A delegation of 40 AfD members has been invited to Washington this week. In Germany, an influential business lobby group has recently opened its events to AfD parliamentarians. It backtracked after an intense backlash, but there are corporate bosses, especially in AfD strongholds, who openly admit to talking to a party that has already gained much control in certain regions.
Still, there is a ceiling on how far the party could go on its own. Recent polling suggested that its voter potential — that is the proportion of people who say they could theoretically imagine voting for the AfD — lies at 28 percent. That is very close to its actual polling results, which fluctuate about the 26 percent mark. In other words, the AfD has nearly used up its potential and is a long way from an outright majority at the national level, which is very rare in German politics anyway. It would need a coalition partner to rule.
The only other right-of-center political force is the conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union of Bavaria, which is in government.
While some of its members, particularly in the East, are open to discussing some form of collaboration with the AfD, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said this would never happen under his watch. He pointed to the many “fundamental differences” between the parties, particularly the AfD’s euroskepticism and its anti-NATO rhetoric.
These foreign policy issues are also already putting cracks in the new facade of professionalism. As Germany undertakes a massive rearmament program and military reform, the AfD cannot agree on how the country should be defended, nor even against whom.
AfD defense spokesman Rudiger Lucassen last week openly attacked the party’s powerful leader in Thuringia, Bjorn Hocke, in parliament over this issue. The AfD is deeply divided on Germany’s relationship with Russia in particular. This is so critical to running the country that it cannot be glossed over.
Nonetheless, Germany’s mainstream politicians should not rely on pointing to the AfD’s radicalism or its assumed inability to run an effective government in the hope that would win them back the voters who have drifted right. It is a strategy that has failed for years. Despite considerable infighting, the AfD is on its way to becoming a more professional party without softening its tone or content, and neither voters nor supporters seem put off by that.
Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and journalist. Her latest book is Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany.
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