On April 14, 2013, none of the 1,500 guests who had come to the "Potsdam" room of the Berlin hotel "Intercontinental" guessed what would have become of their plans six years later. The later first party spokesmen Bernd Lucke and Konrad Adam had the idea for the "Alternative for Germany", now what they had advised and dreamed of 16 other men in the house of Adams in Oberursel, Hesse, had become a reality. "Protest party starts anti-euro election campaign," headlined SPIEGEL ONLINE at the time.
In its first few months, at the height of the Greek crisis and the euro bailout measures, the AfD concentrated primarily on one topic: the dissolution of the euro area in its current form. From a socio-political perspective, it was still a long way from its present appearance as the anti-refugee and anti-Islam party. In the beginning, the AfD even demanded that asylum seekers be allowed to work. A year later, this liberal approach was over, founder Lucke also said that war refugees should best be kept away from Germany.
It will soon become apparent that the AfD's dominant and most successful topic will only become really powerful after Lucke and his followers left the party in summer 2015 and the successors have a free hand with their course against the Chancellor's refugee policy.
Today the party is represented in all state parliaments and in the Bundestag, the euro theme is a pale reminder of the early days. The arrival of more than a million refugees in 2015 provided the AfD with its real issue, its core brand.
In the past three years, the sound has become even more shrill and radical, not least due to the strengthening of the national-ethnic "wing" network around the right wing Björn Höcke and Andreas Kalbitz. But that's only one side. The new AfD honorary chairman, Alexander Gauland, has long been pursuing a strategy to detach the AfD from the role of a pure protest party. For the AfD, it is about "at some point preparing to constructively support a CDU-led minority government in one of the countries - probably in the east," Gauland told SPIEGEL.
Clearly radicalized
Where the AfD ultimately ends up, whether it becomes a right-wing conservative party or a radical ethnic movement is still open. One thing is clear, however: Compared to the early years, the AfD has become significantly more radical and has landed far in the right spectrum.
How did that happen? SPIEGEL shows key turning points in the history of the party, which now has around 35,000 members - from Bernd Lucke to Frauke Petry to the very youngest days under the new management duo Jörg Meuthen and Tino Chrupalla and AfD overfather Alexander Gauland.
The survey curve since the foundation of the AfD shows how remarkable the premium - at that time still as an anti-euro party - was. Hardly started, she achieved a respectable success in the first federal election in autumn 2013 and only barely failed due to the five percent hurdle.
The subject of euro is played out under the economics professor Lucke . The result: the first entry into the European Parliament in May 2014. Then there are further successes in state elections. A key date is August 31, 2014, when the AfD and Frauke Petry won 9.7 percent in the elections in Saxony. In September the AfD in Thuringia and Brandenburg achieved even better results.
As a result, however, Lucke's leadership style in a trio with Frauke Petry and Konrad Adam came under increasing criticism. Lucke will be replaced by Petry at the party conference in Essen in July 2015, and she will continue to lead the party together with Jörg Meuthen . The refugee movement in summer and autumn is dividing the country - and the AfD in particular benefits from this.
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Bernd Lucke (at a party conference in Bremen in January 2015)
But the upswing does not automatically mean stability for the young party. Internal party struggles are also reflected in the decline of the former front woman Frauke Petry. In 2016 she came under pressure internally, in April 2017 she finally suffered a defeat at the Cologne party conference, her application for a "real political course" did not even make it onto the agenda. It is the beginning of her withdrawal that eventually leads to her exit a few months later.
But Petry's and Lucke's career also shows that the supporters do not seem to care who leads the party. For them, the AfD is an outlet for their protest and anger. A new chapter is opened in Cologne: Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland , the new campaign duo, are elected as top candidates, later they will lead the parliamentary group (until today).
In autumn 2017, the federal political high point: Despite all power struggles and intrigues, the AfD moves into the Bundestag with 12.6 percent as the strongest opposition force. Elections in the federal states followed, and in 2019 the AfD became the second strongest force in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia.
Let's take a closer look at the individual development phases:
The debt crisis around Greece is a key driver for the founding of the party and also spurred its initial growth until it narrowly failed in the 2013 federal election. The party, which is initially ridiculed because of the many economics professors in its ranks as a "professor party", makes it European Parliament. However, the basis for AfD success remains volatile afterwards. In surveys, she sometimes drops below the five percent hurdle.
Power struggles are becoming sharper
Only when Frauke Petry's success in Saxony in August 2014 did the AfD gain a large media presence - and made Petry its internal competitor Luckes. Interesting: The rise of the Pegida movement in Dresden, which is hostile to foreigners and Islam, in the winter of 2015 does not automatically mean a nationwide increase for the AfD. At the time, Pegida was apparently a local event from which the party itself could not benefit nationwide.
On the contrary: The poll values for the AfD are falling - in parallel with the intensifying power struggles. These determine the media coverage far more than the attempts of the AfD to clarify its relationship to the Pegida movement, which is also controversial in parts of the party. Lucke and others are pushing against the far right wing and are even pressing for a process of elimination against the Thuringian AfD country chief Björn Höcke (which will be terminated after the Essen party congress).
Petry finally overthrows Lucke as party leader at a party conference in July 2015 and from then on leads the party together with Jörg Meuthen . At this point, the AfD is in its weakest phase since it was founded - it is sometimes below four percent in the surveys.
In the middle of the AfD survey crisis, more and more people are coming to Germany due to the Syrian war and a refugee movement that is also intensifying from other countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to official statistics, there will be 1.1 million refugees by the end of 2015.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) speaks her famous sentence: "We can do it!" The AfD is now focusing on a clear anti-foreigner program, the poll values are rising steeply - gains that the party has not seen since then.
The success in Saxony-Anhalt in March 2016 with 23.4 percent confirmed the AfD on its right-wing populist course, especially since the then head of state, André Poggenburg (he will leave the AfD in January 2019), is a representative at the top who was still a colleague at the time in the national-ethnic "wing" network around Höcke. In October 2016, the party moves into the tenth state parliament in Berlin. Here, too, it shows once again that she benefits from the increased turnout - especially from the non-voters' camp.
REUTERS
Ex-AfD boss Frauke Petry
But once again, the AfD's success seems short-lived. The internal dispute continues to smolder. It is primarily about the future direction of the party, which Meuthen's co-chair Petry wants to commit to a "real political course". In addition, Petry repeatedly offends the other AfD top politicians with her solo tours.
Sidelined
After Right Winger Höcke dubbed the Holocaust Memorial a "Monument of Shame" and called for a "180 degree political change in remembrance", Petry initiated a process of elimination against Höcke - still supported by the later AfD politician Alice Weidel.
The consequence of the internal power struggle: The values for the AfD are falling rapidly - until the Cologne Federal Party Congress in April 2017. There, Petry is finally sidelined, Weidel and Gauland are chosen as the top duo in the Bundestag election campaign. Petry withdraws more and more, soon no longer plays a role, the AfD stabilizes.
The final graphic shows that the AfD can now build on a broader base at a high level. The crisis that led to Petry's withdrawal is overcome relatively quickly. The reason is the ongoing Bundestag election campaign, but also the refugee issue, which continues to dominate the public.
The party derives maximum profit from this; it bases its attacks on Merkel and almost entirely on her refugee policy. The euro issue with which the AfD once started only plays a subordinate role. In the federal election, the AfD is finally ahead of the other three opposition parties, the FDP, the Greens and the Left.
Leaving the once 94-strong group - today there are still 90 - will not harm her. In December 2017 in Hanover, Gauland and Meuthen were elected as the new management duo. Almost half a year later, at an event organized by the "Junge Alternative", Gauland said that the Nazis had been "just a shit" in 1,000 years of German history. There is keen criticism and outrage, Gauland asserts that it was never his intention to "trivialize or even taunt the victims of this criminal system". The graph itself shows that the debate itself has hardly any influence on the survey values.
Another event will soon overlay Gauland's sentence: the violent death of a German in Chemnitz, who is said to have been stabbed by an Iraqi and a Syrian. Parts of the AfD put maximum emphasis on the topic: the national-national "wing" network organizes a "funeral march" in the city, in which right-wing populist politicians demonstrate alongside Pegida supporters and violent neo-Nazis.
AFP
AfD honorary chairman Gauland (left), right wing Höcke
The terrifying thing is that the AfD has nationwide survey highs of 15 percent. As soon as the topic is out of the media, things are going downwards again. The AfD tries to cannibalize the dismissal of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, in November, as a result of the events in Chemnitz. That doesn't help her in the polls.
Maassen's retirement is nevertheless a drastic event for the AfD: In January 2019, his successor at the head of domestic intelligence, Thomas Haldenwang, announced that the AfD was a "test case" and the "Young Alternative" and the "wing" a "suspected case" "to be explained in the area of right-wing extremism. Henceforth, the party tries not to become an object of observation, so as not to scare off middle-class supporters.
Stayed below expectations
In the European elections in May, the AfD recorded rather average increases. Although it can improve its result compared to 2014, at 11 percent it falls far short of the expectations of up to 20 percent. As a result, the messages are tightened again. In the East, the AfD advertises with the slogan "Complete the turn" - as if the Federal Republic was in the final stages of the SED dictatorship in the GDR.
The graphic shows that the AfD can stabilize at a high level. Even the radicalization and chaos in many West German state associations can hardly harm her. The successes of the "Flügel" networker Höcke , Andreas Kalbitz and Jörg Urban in the East German state elections in late summer and autumn reinforce their influence in the AfD. At the federal party conference in December, the Völkisch nationales play a key role in the election of AfD top representatives to the executive bodies.
Remarkable: In the polls, the internal power shifts of the party do not hurt - shortly before Christmas 2019, the AfD stands at 14 percent nationwide, almost as long as not.
The real question for the AfD is in the future: Does the AfD blow up the "glass ceiling" of 15 to 20 percent that Gauland is talking about? Can she even deal with a losing streak? The past three years have seen a steady upward trend. But the party also needs growth in the populous western countries. Here, however, she has been on the spot in many surveys for months.
A test is soon to take place: in February 2020 there will be elections in Hamburg, once the first West German state parliament in which the AfD moved. Right-wing populists see polls at seven percent. That is just one point more than when moving in five years ago.