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AfD boss Meuthen in Kalkar
Photo: WOLFGANG RATTAY / REUTERS
A study has been advertised for some time on the website of the publisher Götz Kubitschek.
“Does the AfD fail?” Is the title, the paper was published in the company's own “Institute for State Policy”.
It also deals with the course taken by party leader Jörg Meuthen and that part of the AfD who, with a board decision in May, ensured that the then Brandenburg AfD chairman Andreas Kalbitz lost his membership rights.
Kubitschek, publisher on the right and not in the AfD, is considered one of the closest companions of the Thuringian AfD far-right Björn Höcke, the leading figure of the party's "wing" network, which has now officially been dissolved and classified as a right-wing extremist network by the protection of the constitution.
Höckes defeat?
Kubitschek has not yet entered his website about the latest federal party conference of the AfD in Kalkar, at which Meuthen sharply attacked the right wing of the AfD with his speech and only narrowly escaped an application for disapproval on Sunday - contrary to other custom.
more on the subject
Icon: VideoDirectional dispute at the federal party conference: AfD dismantles itself A video by Ann-Katrin Müller and Andreas Evelt
AfD Federal Party Congress: Meuthen's small victory by Severin Weiland
AfD federal party conference: Jörg Meuthen accounts for the right wing von Severin Weiland
AfD Federal Party Congress: Camp fight in Kalkar by Severin Weiland
Kalkar, as the supporters of Meuthen in the AfD see it, was also Höcke's defeat.
The Thuringian never went to the lectern himself, but got involved.
“Herr Höcke, show yourself.
You are the puller in the background, ”said the Berlin AfD district councilor Andreas Otti on Sunday in the hall.
Apparently, however, Höcke did not act as successfully as at the time when Kalbitz was still at his side.
Kalbitz was considered a "wing" organizer until he lost his AfD membership rights by a board resolution.
He was accused of not having a membership in the neo-Nazi HDJ when he joined the party.
Kalbitz denies having ever been a member and is suing in court for his return to the party.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution has an HDJ membership number.
Kalbitz is not completely outside, however, in October he traveled with an AfD tour group to the crisis region of Nagorno Karabakh.
He followed Kalkar on the screen.
"Jörg Meuthen's sometimes divisive derailments," Kalbitz told SPIEGEL, were an expression of "personal nervousness, the loss of his connection to the party base and a shocking political ineptitude, which is reflected in the current survey results."
Majority for Meuthen in the federal board
In Kalkar, Meuthen saw it the other way around: The action by two AfD MPs, through which far-right bloggers came to the Bundestag and harassed parliamentarians, had an immediate effect in a Forsa survey in which the AfD came to seven percent.
In the 2017 federal election she achieved 12.6 percent.
Meuthen, so his supporters see it, has won a point in Kalkar.
“One had the impression that Kalbitz was missing.
He swirled around at party congresses and brought together majorities for Höcke, "said an AfD member who wants to remain anonymous.
Several posts had to be re-elected: Among other things, with the treasurer Carsten Hütter from Saxony, his vice Christian Waldheim from Schleswig-Holstein and the member of the Bundestag Joana Cotar from Hesse, who moved up for Kalbitz, three representatives came to the federal executive board who are counted as part of the so-called moderate camp.
Cotar, once briefly in the CDU, had defended the blow against Kalbitz in an interview after her election.
You had "no other choice to decide to throw out."
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At that time still together in one party: Andreas Kalbitz, Björn Höcke and Stephan Brandner
Photo: RONALD WITTEK / EPA-EFE / REX
The 47-year-old is now one of 15 members of the AfD federal executive board, only the honorary chairman Alexander Gauland has no voting rights there.
The Meuthen camp has been referring to ten representatives with voting rights since the weekend - against four representatives who were once against the expulsion of Kalbitz from the committee, including parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel and Meuthen's co-party leader Tino Chrupalla.
But Weidel and Chrupalla - they are currently being traded as a possible top team for the 2021 federal election campaign - are not fighting for Kalbitz, as has become clear in recent months.
Gauland acts differently, who criticized the way the membership was canceled and relies on a final decision before a civil court.
Meuthen wants to save his party from being observed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
But how strong are his followers really?
Kalkar was a yardstick.
In the elections, the so-called moderates achieved results of just over 50 percent.
Meuthen received support above all from the western regional associations, and there was some sharp criticism from the east.
After all, it turned out that Meuthen's supporters also obviously know how to network - against Höcke and Co.
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AfD honorary chairman Gauland
Photo: SASCHA STEINBACH / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
In the federal executive committee sits with the Thuringian member of the Bundestag and vice-party leader Stephan Brandner a supporter of Höcke.
Brandner called Meuthen's speech to SPIEGEL "remarkable, but out of place and politically unwise".
“Unfortunately,” Meuthen continued “on the wrong track” that he began in the spring - meaning Kalbitz's expulsion.
"Obviously he does not become wise because of damage," says Brandner.
The lawyer would like Meuthen to refrain from such “superfluous and harmful polarization within the party” in the future, to act immediately in the interests of the party and to concentrate on the political opponent “who is outside the AfD”.
With the newly elected colleagues, Brandner adds, he hopes "for a good cooperation."
Brandner's words, however, do not sound like a peace agreement.
Meuthen and his followers know that.
In Kalkar, the party leader for AfD conditions dared to go far with his speech and, with a view to his course on Sunday, went a step further and declared that if he did not like that, "should submit a motion to vote out at the next party congress."
In fact, regular board elections are only a year after the general election.
Before that, there will be another party congress in the spring, at which the top team for the federal election may be chosen.
Will the right wingers take up the fight against Meuthen there?
Just before the election campaign?
In other parties this could probably be denied.
This does not apply to a party like the AfD.
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