AfD: history, chair, program and spin-offs
Created: 04/22/2022, 11:29 am
Federal Chairman of the AfD: Tino Chrupalla.
(Archive photo) © Christian Spicker/Imago
Again and again, power and direction struggles within the AfD cause a stir.
There are also donation scandals and surveillance by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The
Alternative for Germany
emerged in 2013 from a large number of political alliances and organizations.
In 2014, the AfD ran for the first elections.
In 2015, the party's political direction shifted from a neocon and business liberal stance to a right-wing populist one.
A wave of party resignations followed.
The party makes headlines with various topics.
Entire state associations of the AfD are under surveillance by the respective state offices for the protection of the constitution because of the attitude of some of their members.
Berlin - When the history of the AfD began in 2012, its future top politicians Jörg Meuthen and Alice Weidel were not yet involved in public events.
The federal spokesman Tino Chrupalla, who was elected in 2019, just appeared on the fringes of Pegida and the Identitarian Movement.
Nobody was talking about right-wing populism when the party was initially founded under the name Wahlalternative 2013.
It was made up of various alliances with a neoconservative background and was mainly critical of Europe and the euro as a result of the financial crisis of 2010.
The first members included today's honorary chairman Alexander Gauland, Beatrix von Storch and also Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry, who have since left.
The founding party conference in Berlin in spring 2013 elected Lucke and Frauke Petry as chairmen of the Alternative for Germany.
Björn Höcke then founded the Thuringian state association.
The new federal office moved into its seat in Berlin.
Various organizations belonging to the German Federation of Trade Unions have their offices in the same building complex.
Protests against the AfD in front of its federal office are usually well received by trade unionists.
The AfD quickly gained prominent faces, donations and structure
The party, which was young at the time, was remarkably well organized and was able to set up state associations in all German states within a few months.
Under the direction of Bernd Lucke, Frauke Petry, Beatrix von Storch and Alexander Gauland, a full-fledged party emerged that quickly found new supporters.
The bourgeois image, which was expressed not least in the fact that there were no chairmen but only “federal spokespersons”, was well received.
In 2014, the AfD already had around 20,000 members.
The prominent supporters included the SPD politician Thilo Sarrazin, who himself was never a member of the Alternative for Germany.
Unlike the well-known entrepreneur and former BDI President Hans-Olaf Henkel.
He not only joined the party, but also supported it generously with donations and loans.
It was already becoming apparent that in the course of its history the AfD would move closer and closer to right-wing populism, which politicians such as Alice Weidel, Björn Höcke and Tino Chrupalla would later represent.
In contrast to the economic liberalist Bernd Lucke, whose programmatic line Jörg Meuthen continues, many AfD mandate holders have always been on the right of the political spectrum.
But Meuthen also left the party in spring 2022.
In 2014, the Alternative for Germany enjoyed many electoral successes
The history of the AfD was shaped by its success in the 2014 European elections. While the alternative for Germany failed to get into a number of state parliaments last year, it was able to win seven seats in the European Parliament with around seven percent of the votes.
Beatrix von Storch gave up her seat in the EU Parliament in 2017 for the still relatively unknown economics professor Jörg Meuthen.
Right-wing populism has been on the rise across Europe after many national state representatives were dissatisfied with European politics during the financial crisis.
The AfD, under its federal spokesman Bernd Lucke, was able to take advantage of this climate: the AfD's inclusion in the European Conservative group ennobled the party politically and angered the CDU.
The following state elections provided further impetus.
Thuringia – top candidate
Björn Höcke
Brandenburg – top candidate
Alexander Gauland
Saxony – top candidate
Frauke Petry
In the years that followed,
Jörg Meuthen
(Baden-Württemberg) ,
Alice Weidel
(Saxony-Anhalt) and
Tino Chrupalla
(Saxony) also ran as top candidates in state elections.
Directional struggles in the AfD produce the first splits at the height of the refugee crisis in 2015
The year 2015 marked a turning point in the history of the AfD.
With the onset of the refugee crisis, it was almost impossible to reconcile the different interests of the representatives of right-wing populism, led by Alexander Gauland, Beatrix von Storch, Alice Weidel and Frauke Petry, with those of the economic liberal Eurosceptics around Bernd Lucke and Jörg Meuthen.
An open struggle broke out, which led to the splitting off of various splinter groups from the Alternative for Germany.
The dispute over direction and the ensuing power struggles within the party also ensure that a large number of members, who had played a key role in shaping its history, left the AfD.
Among them were prominent figures such as Hans-Olaf Henkel and the founder and federal spokesman Bernd Lucke, and later also Frauke Petry.
Some formed their own political organizations, while others left the political scene.
Björn Höcke remained in the AfD and installed the well-known inner-party grouping "Der Flügel", for which Tino Chrupalla also has sympathy.
The best-known offspring of the AfD are:
The Blue Party (
Frauke Petry
)
The Wing (
Björn Höcke
)
Alliance for Progress and Awakening (
Bernd Lucke
)
Independent (
Jörg Meuthen
)
Donation scandals in the AfD shake the party
After the exit wave, the alternative for Germany fell in favor of voters.
But with the peak of the refugee crisis and the subsequent discussion about immigration policy and asylum law, she recovered so well that Alexander Gauland later described the crisis as a gift.
In the meantime, the AfD had arrived in all state parliaments and in 2017 also in the Bundestag.
Without Frauke Petry and Bernd Lucke, the AfD and right-wing populism became a fixture in the history of German politics.
The AfD won 94 Bundestag mandates in 2017 and the AfD leadership entered the Bundestag with Alice Weidel, Jörg Meuthen, Beatrix von Storch and Alexander Gauland, while Björn Höcke and later federal spokesman Tino Chrupalla led the party in their state associations.
But the party didn't make the headlines.
The party should not have accepted and should have reported substantial party donations from Switzerland, which incriminate board member Alice Weidel, and another in favor of Jörg Meuthen.
Both were initially missed and only made up for much too late.
In anticipation of the probable fine, the AfD had to build up significant reserves to avoid bankruptcy.
The AfD in Brandenburg officially becomes a suspected case under the surveillance of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution
The national-conservative program of the AfD left the scope of right-wing populism in parts and critics and the media increasingly called the AfD and its representatives "right-wing extremists".
In some cases, courts confirmed this and Björn Höcke was also defeated in court proceedings.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution became aware of the right-wing currents in the Alternative for Germany and initially observed two state associations before classifying the entire Brandenburg state association as a suspected case.
Its chairman Andreas Kalbitz is considered a friend of Tino Chrupalla and a bitter opponent of former federal spokesman Jörg Meuthen.
The position of the liberal Jörg Meuthen in the party seemed to be increasingly weakened before his resignation.
Nevertheless, he ran a fight vote on the board of the AfD, which ended 5: 7 for the exclusion of Andreas Kalbitz.
Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla voted against.
Jörg Meuthen and Beatrix von Storch were in favor of expelling the party.
Honorary Chairman Alexander Gauland was not entitled to vote when the history of internal power struggles reached its preliminary climax.
The former federal spokesman Frauke Petry and Bernd Lucke did not comment on the process.
