April 14, 2013 in Berlin: founding party conference of the AfD: Wolf-Joachim Schünemann, Heidrun Jakobs, Frauke Petry, Konrad Adam, Bernd Lucke and Alexander Gauland (from left)
Image: Matthias Lüdecke / FAZ
The dissatisfied are easy prey for the AfD. Because the parties to the left of the AfD have been lacking the right language for ten years.
AEven ten years after the party was founded, the “Alternative for Germany” is a thorn in the side of German democracy. They didn’t let themselves be shaken off like the NPD or the “Republicans”, who celebrated temporary successes but quickly disappeared again, partly because they didn’t play a major role in everyday parliamentary life and in public.
For the AfD, on the other hand, the paradox seems to apply: even if it no longer existed, it would still be elected.
In any case, the AfD has done everything in these ten years to disappear again. Its leaders fell out on several occasions or were overthrown. In each case, this was connected with the fact that the party became radicalized, until finally the protection of the constitution became active. One of its founding fathers spoke of a “monster”, also because the party lived up to all the clichés that it ascribed to the “old parties”: intrigues, affairs, scandals, fights to the death. Rarely has the AfD really dealt with the country it claims to care about. She was mostly concerned with herself.