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AfD co-boss Jörg Meuthen in Dresden: This time no internal criticism
Photo: Sylvio Dittrich / imago images / Sylvio Dittrich
They are very proud of the AfD's slogan: »Germany.
But normal «.
It adorns posters on which a noticeable number of women in the male-dominated party can be seen, it dominates an advertising film in which, among other things, a grandfather gives his grandchild a very close heart.
It is the message with which the party draws on its way into the federal election campaign.
It is also a kind of camouflage.
There can be no talk of normality at the AfD.
Deeply divided internally, externally still in danger of being classified as a suspected right-wing extremist case by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, currently only stopped by a court order.
The directional battle between co-party leader Jörg Meuthen and his colleague Tino Chrupalla over a more moderate course or with the involvement of the more radical forces continues.
At least Meuthen can breathe a sigh of relief. In Dresden, a motion from 50 delegates who wanted to have him deposed was not put on the agenda, a majority voted in favor of “not addressing”.
While Meuthen - unlike in November at the federal party conference in Kalkar - this time abstained from internal party criticism, Chrupalla took the opposite approach: He criticized the "internal party small wars" of the past few months, called for an "end to camp thinking".
And he also included Meuthen in his criticism: the discipline demanded by him "applies to everyone".
For the AfD there is a contradicting picture almost six months before the general election.
In the state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, it lost around a third of the votes; in the latest federal polls it is between ten and 12 percent.
In Saxony, she even passed the ruling CDU party in a recent Civey poll.
Chrupalla demands a »clear profile, unity, courage and unity« in Dresden.
Meuthen dreams of a success in the state elections in June in Saxony-Anhalt, the last before the federal election on September 26th.
"If we do it right this time," you have the chance "to become the strongest political force in a federal state for the first time and even with some distance," he says.
No top candidates for the time being - but maybe soon?
In front of the exhibition hall, demonstrators against the AfD demonstrate within sight and hearing distance.
In the former slaughterhouse, around 560 delegates gathered in Corona times.
Separated at tables, the manageable number of journalists mostly housed in a separate hall, the distance rules are largely adhered to in pandemic times, although some delegates sometimes have to be warned by the meeting management to wear the masks.
In Dresden, albeit not as loudly and openly as last in Kalkar, a divided party is once again presenting itself.
The controversy over the election manifesto is sometimes criss-cross.
Across the camps, there has long been a struggle for an exit from the EU over an application by Bundestag members Peter Boehringer and Harald Weyel, which even briefly brings Meuthen and his honorary chairman Alexander Gauland together.
A delegate calls into the microphone in the hall: "Because the EU has to die if Germany wants to live."
"We consider Germany's exit from the European Union and the establishment of a new European economic and interest group to be necessary."
From the election manifesto of the AfD
The 80-year-old Gauland has experienced this before, at the party conference in Stuttgart in 2016 he warned against leaving NATO.
Now he points out the concern of European neighbors "after two world wars" about a "special German path" and calls for alternative forms of European cooperation in the event of a dexit.
Meuthen warns that you will achieve "nothing in the election campaign, nothing in Berlin, nothing in Brussels".
But in the end Meuthen and Gauland have to admit defeat.
The application now states that "Germany's exit from the European Union and the establishment of a new European economic and interest group are necessary."
There is also otherwise discord.
Among other things, in the question of who should be the faces in the federal election campaign.
Chrupalla actually wants to be the top candidate for the federal election, preferably together with Alice Weidel.
But the party vice and parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag canceled a candidacy at the party congress early in the morning (read the details here).
So nothing will come of the duo for the time being.
Meuthen had slowed them down, in March by a board resolution, organized an online survey among members, in which 87 percent of the approximately 7,500 participants (out of 32,000 AfD members) said that the question of the top candidates should be postponed until a later date - again to decide in another member survey.
The attempt by the Saxon AfD state and parliamentary group leader Jörg Urban to put the choice of a top duo or a team on the agenda fails.
It is the first time that day that tensions can be felt among the delegates.
In the end, 50.89 percent against 49.11 percent vote in favor of “not being involved”, a tight result that the Meuthen supporters can record as a small victory on points.
But the candidate question has only been postponed.
In Dresden, a two-way solution will be adopted for the upcoming member survey, but a team of five top candidates fails.
So everything is still possible for Chrupalla, as well as for Weidel at his side, should she want to compete.
Much still seems unclear, even to those directly involved.
A Meuthen supporter, Joana Cotar, a member of the Hessian Bundestag, is also ready to run.
Whatever the outcome of the choice of personnel, the federal executive board approved a timetable for a member survey by the end of May on Friday.
But that now contradicts the Dresden decision.
Applications, according to this resolution, could "either be submitted as individual candidates or as a team".
Possibly, so it was said from the AfD leadership, there could be a further application on Sunday to clarify the procedure of the top candidate election.
Höcke is publicly involved
In the Saxon state capital, it is noticeable that the Thuringian AfD state chief Björn Höcke appears several times as a speaker in the application consultation.
The 49-year-old has never been so visible at any federal party conference.
The far right is vehemently promoting a corona resolution, it should be a "political sign", and in the end it will be adopted.
The “responsible citizens”, it says there, should be left to decide “to what extent they want to protect themselves” and should refrain from “any, even indirect, compulsion” to vaccinate, test or use apps.
Höcke also managed to get a motion on the agenda calling for the reinstatement of the head of the internal "Working Group on the Protection of the Constitution," Roland Hartwig, who had been deposed from Meuthen and the federal executive board.
This should not be voted on until Sunday.
Höcke also employs the Meuthen warehouse in Dresden elsewhere.
When he not only called for the reform, but also, as a "final consequence", for the protection of the Constitution to be dissolved in an application, Meuthen confidante Alexander Wolf had to answer the microphone.
Reform of the authority, yes, but dissolution, that "overshoots the mark".
Once again there has to be a vote.
Wolf wins, and this time Meuthen's supporters applaud with relief.