As the AfD politicians fall on the stage of the "Bismarckhöhe" in Brandenburg Werder an der Havel in the arms, make two in the collective cheers on the first election forecasts from Brandenburg initially not with: Top contender Andreas Kalbitz and his colleague from the right "wing" Network, the Thuringian AFD boss Björn Höcke.
They both look up for a moment, then Höcke bends over to Kalbitz, says something to him, and finally they hug. Höcke, with his face to the cameras, closes his eyes, weighs Kalbitz left, right, left again. A slap on the shoulder, then the other may congratulate.
It is a symbolic image on this election evening: The two most important representatives of the right wing in the AfD show their special solidarity.
Similar, if not quite so intimate, jubilation takes place in Dresden, where with Jörg Urban also a "wing" fan has achieved a historic record for right-wing populists. There, on the sixth floor of the state parliament, there is a lot of jubilation as the first forecasts appear on the screen. The next to Urban AfD Federal Chairman Jörg Meuthen rips his arms up, as if he had personally retracted the victory in the Free State. Urban speaks a little later of a "historic day", the AfD as a "young party" have the CDU stronghold in Saxony "shaken". The AfD, Urban says, is "the winner of the election".
Indeed, the massive profits of the AfD mean historical cuts in the East: In Saxony, it climbed from just under 10 percent five years ago to now almost 28 percent, in Brandenburg, they doubled to almost 24 percent. The Left Party, which suffers heavy casualties in both countries that evening, the right-wing populists seem to have expired the rank of the East German People's Party.
And one more thing, the results show clearly: The increased turnout in both countries is mainly due to the fact that the AfD could activate non-voters.
FILIP SINGER / EPA-EFE / REX
AfD-Wahljubel in Dresden with von Storch, Urban and Meuthen: The CDU stronghold "shaken".
In the AfD there will be one question in the room: Will the right wing, whose main representatives are Kalbitz and Höcke, be able to increase its weight in the party? At the end of November, a new AFD federal executive will be elected at the federal party conference, before that the state election in Thuringia will be held for Höcke in October - a success there should continue to benefit him and the "wing".
"Now it really starts," says Kalbitz
One striking feature of this evening is that the participants try - at least in their public statements - not to emphasize the success of the network too much. In Werder in Brandenburg, Kalbitz shakes hands with the microphone after the first forecast, while his name in the hall is loudly chanted. "It's not Kalbitz, it's the AfD," he shouts into the hall. The result is better than he hoped. "Now it really starts." This sentence he will say in the evening again and again in the cameras - with the addition that AfD had come "to stay".
In fact, AfD leaders are trying to sell success in the East as one of the total AfD. The co-faction leader in the Bundestag, Alice Weidel, is not a "wing" fanatics, but had closed after SPIEGEL information a few weeks ago an alliance with Höcke network. When asked in the ARD, whether the success of her party is not primarily a success of the "wing", she says that she can "not recognize" and adds: "We make policy for the people and not for any wing in the party."
Questions about the "wing" are fended off
Even AfD boss Alexander Gauland does not like to talk about the success of the "wing" this evening. "The good results have won the AfD," says Gauland on ZDF. This has to do with the "wing" only insofar as there is such an exponent with Andreas Kalbitz ". It sounds similar of Meuthen in the Saxon capital: The AfD is "no radical and extreme party", one has a "clear agenda, on which all stand," he averts questions about a gain of the "wing".
Odd ANDERSEN / AFP
AfD politician Kalbitz and Höcke in Werder: "So we will stand together in the near future"
Kalbitz 'proven contacts in the past to the far-right NPD - the SPIEGEL had reported shortly before the election on his participation in a demonstration with NPD officials in Athens in 2007 - Gauland takes this evening at the election party in Werder as an opportunity to protect himself to ask him.
Gauland claims that there is no record in the story - although Kalbitz had confirmed his participation in the neo-Nazi march in Athens even the SPIEGEL. But Gauland does not want to criticize Kalbitz, on the contrary, he conjures the example of the unity of the party with his example: "So we will stand together in the near future."
From the election party in Werder also Björn Höcke in the ARD to Kalbitz and its participation in the demonstration in Athens is asked. The Thuringian AfD boss acts on this day, since his "wing" -mitstreiter has made a big success in Brandenburg, visibly solved. Smiling, he says: "I do not think people are interested in Germany."
