The far right in Germany is in high spirits.
On Saturday, during a conference in the eastern Saxony city of Riesa, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) laid out its ambitions to close Germany’s borders, resume purchases of Russian gas and essentially collapse the EU.
German media reports that the party’s agreed manifesto includes plans to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, leave the euro and create a new confederation of states.
AfD leader Alice Weidel has even publicly embraced the term “remigration,” a word widely understood to mean the mass “return” or deportation of people with an immigrant background.
Thousands of anti-AfD protesters took to the streets of Riza on Saturday, trying to block access to the conference venue.
When Alice Weidel eventually took the stage, she described the activists outside as a “leftist crowd.”
And in front of a joyful conference hall, the delegates talked about “large-scale repatriations”.
“And I have to be honest with you: if it’s going to be called remigration, then it’s going to be: remigration,” she said.
It’s a stark departure from just a year ago, when she sought to distance herself from the scandal, which centered on a highly controversial concept.
There have been nationwide demonstrations against the AfD after it emerged that senior party figures were among those who attended a meeting where “remigration” was allegedly discussed with Martin Zeller, an Austrian far-right activist with a neo-Nazi past.
Sellner wrote about the “remigration” of asylum seekers, certain aliens with right of residence and “unassimilated” citizens.
A buzzword of the far right in Europe, some argue that legal residents will not be forced to leave. Critics say “remigration” is just a euphemism for a blatantly racist mass deportation plan.
But Alice Weidel’s decision to personally introduce the term just weeks after a snap federal election shows her party’s growing radicalism and confidence.
She also promised to demolish wind farms, which she called “windmills of shame”, to leave the EU’s asylum system and to “throw out” gender studies professors.
The AfD is consistently second in Germany’s polls and has made gains in recent regional elections in the east of the country, where the party is strongest.
However, it is very unlikely to gain power because other parties will not work with the AfD.
Sections of the AfD have been classified by domestic intelligence as right-wing extremists.
In 2024, AfD hard-right mascot Björn Höcke was fined twice for using the SA’s banned Nazi paramilitary phrase “Alles für Deutschland” (“All for Germany”).
He called it an “everyday sentence” and denied knowing its origins, despite being a former history teacher.
Reports that attendees at a conference in Riga this weekend chanted “Alice für Deutschland” prompted swift comparisons in the German media.
However, AfD figures have often complained of being demonized and persecuted by a biased media and establishment.
And Alice Weidel’s party, of which she is a supporter and now a candidate for chancellor, has weathered repeated storms and is now hovering around 20% or even higher than national polls.
The 45-year-old economist, who used to work at Goldman Sachs and is in a same-sex relationship, sought to smooth over the rough edges of her party.
But for those strongly opposed to the AfD, she is a fig leaf or, as one Social Democrat put it, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Despite this, she’s enjoying the renewed attention she’s had invited by tech billionaire Elon Musk for a live chat on his X platform last weekwhere he wholeheartedly supported the party.
Her statement during that debate that Adolf Hitler was in fact a communist drew condemnation, given the Nazi leader’s well-known anti-communism.
Critics have warned of Nazi revisionism – something the AfD has previously been accused of.
Björn Höcke once called for a “180-degree turn” in Germany’s attitude to its Nazi past, while a former co-leader, Alexander Hawland, described the Nazi era as “just a speck in Germany’s more than 1,000-year history of success. “.
Still, the AfD’s anti-establishment, anti-immigration and “awakening” agenda is finding followers in Germany, which is heading to the February 23 election.
