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Jörg Meuthen poses for a photographer on a small fifth-floor set in west Berlin. The apparent calm of the leader of the German extreme right hides the stark struggle for power that is tearing apart his party, Alternative for Germany (AfD). Minutes after the session, Meuthen (Essen, 59 years old) receives this newspaper seated at the oval table, where the party executive makes decisions, and tries to frame the crisis that AfD is going through as a struggle between what he considers the moderate wing, led by himself, and the radicals. But the truth is that personal anger and the thirst for power in its purest form also explain the open war that consumes the main German opposition party, which three years ago burst into Parliament.
Since the arrival of the pandemic, in addition, the polls show a fall in the ultra formation, compared to a rise in the parties of the great coalition of the conservative and social democratic government. Meuthen believes that with the post-pandemic recession will come a great opportunity for the German extreme right. “The position in the polls is not so important, because now there are no elections. What matters to me is what will happen next year. There will be a very deep recession, millions of people will lose their jobs and we will have to offer answers. The answer cannot be more socialism and more state presence. Our alternative, for example, is a strong tax cut ”, he anticipates.
Their opposition to the great European reconstruction plan to alleviate with 750,000 million euros the ravages of the pandemic in the most affected countries such as Spain has not won them even great support. “It is a terrible mistake because it is not for the EU to come to the rescue. The EU should not be allowed to assume public debt, this type of financing is not part of the Union rules. Also, nobody says how they will spend the money. Why don't states do it instead of the EU? What they have in mind is something else, they want more and more decisions to be made in Brussels and they want to build a United States of Europe ”.
Since the AfD was born in 2013, the self-styled moderates have lost every battle. The most ultras have finally prevailed, increasingly radicalizing the party. Meuthen defends that this time it is different. "I have acted differently, you have to have the party on your side and that is what we have now." However, sources of the formation assure that the division is deep, to the point that the risk that the AfD ends up divided in two is more real than ever. “It is true that around 20% -30% of the party is very angry with what we have done [the dissolution of Der Flügel, the radical wing], that they think that we should be united and that those who have positions further to the right also they belong to the party […] but I am sure they will not leave. It is a necessary crisis and by the end of the year we will be a united party with a view to the great elections of 2021 ”, acknowledges Meuthen.
The trigger for the internal crisis was the expulsion from the party of Andreas Kalbitz, a powerful regional leader from the East, whose neo-Nazi past put the German secret services on alert. Kalbitz, who achieved a spectacular second place for AfD in Brandenburg last year and is supported by a very active minority of the party, mainly in the east of the country, is also the brain of Der Flügel , the Wing, in German, a kind of formation within the party, in whose orbit the most extremist representatives gravitate. Meuthen ordered to dissolve the small group in a risky pulse, the end of which is yet to be written. So, just in case, this MEP and economics professor throws a wink at his opponents. “Not all those who belong to El Ala are extremists. Most of the people of El Ala, of course, belong to our party and will continue to do so. What we have is a decision about one person: Andreas Kalbitz ”.
Kalbitz questioned his expulsion before the German court, which this Friday denied him provisional permanence in the party and is expected to issue his final resolution in spring. Meanwhile, the situation has ended up muddying with the hospitalization of a colleague from the training this week, to whom Kalbitz gave an alleged "friendly punch", which sent him to the hospital with a ruptured spleen.
Muethen has until recently protected and defended the ultras he now denies. He claims that they decided to declare war on Kalbitz when they received “new information indicating that [Kalbitz] has a very extremist past and that he had not mentioned that he had been a member of the HDJ [banned neo-Nazi organization] Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend when he joined the party. Meuthen refers to the 258-page report of the German secret services, to which this newspaper has had access and in which it can be read that Kalbitz has had relations with extremist organizations, including the HDJ, for 14 years.
But beyond the past and the virulent struggle for power, it is not so clear how the moderates and radicals differ in the ultra formation. Meuthen argues that the big differences lie in economic positions. “Those of Höcke and his friends in Thuringia are a kind of socialism. We are a party founded on the idea of a market economy and they do not accept it. In the euro we are all united, we are all against it ”.
On issues like immigration, Meuthen acknowledges that they have very similar positions. “We have to strictly control all migration that comes to Europe and our country so that there is no illegal immigration, something that has happened in our country since 2015. We have no problems with the right to asylum but the problem is that they reach the border, they say the word asylum and that's okay, but the majority have no right to be here.
While other European national-populist parties moderate their message, the AfD has continued to radicalize in recent years, according to analysts, and it is clear from the speeches and electoral campaigns of their representatives. Meuthen denies this and attributes to misunderstandings statements such as that of former leader Alexander Gauland relativizing the Holocaust, considering Nazism a bird's-eye in the history of Germany.
When reminded that at rallies, Höcke, for example, equates migrants with criminals, he responds: "but we have problems with the criminality of migrants." When asked if this is Germany's big problem, she replies: "It is a very important problem."
Hate speech
The truth, however, is that the German authorities consider extreme right-wing violence the greatest threat to Germany's security, with 22,300 crimes committed last year. Far-right murders like that of the politician Walter Lübcke, or of eight young people in Hanau, are just the tip of a great iceberg. The German political class accuses the AfD of creating the breeding ground for violence with xenophobic discourse. Meuthen says his is not a hate message. “We are the victims. There is an increase in crimes on the left and the right and we must fight against both ”.
On the fifth floor of the Berlin apartment, through which various party employees walk in ties, there is a certain tension today. It is the eve of the preliminary decision of the Berlin court judging the Kalbitz case. Hours later, Meuthen achieved a first victory, when the judge ordered the politician with a neo-Nazi past to remain out of the party as a precautionary measure until the final decision is made in a few months. But the battle is not over. Those who know Kalbitz say that he is a man with nothing to lose and willing to do anything, with whatever means are needed. The man threatening to split Germany's far right warned on Friday that he was not throwing in the towel. The battle continues.