GERMANY

Party: Alternative for Germany (AfD)

Leader: Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel (co-leaders); also Björn Höcke, AfD leader in Thuringia.

Type Leader: Different AfD leaders represent the party at federal and state levels.  The AfD is branded a tacit Nazi party by left critics who say it courts neo-Nazi votes and alliances and espouses violence toward immigrants, particularly Muslims. Accordingly, the AfD has seen openly neo-Nazi groups support its public rallies, and there have been associated attacks on immigrants. The shocking leaked revelations in January of a secret meeting between AfD and neo-Nazi leaders (see earlier discussion) resurfaced public fears of Nazi influence on the AfDTwo separate trials of AfD leader Björn Höcke over his use of a Nazi slogan has done little to allay public concerns about the AfD’s leadership and supporters.

% National Vote: The AfD received 10.4% of the popular vote in the September 2021 national election, securing them 83 seats in the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament. (The winner was the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), led by Olaf Scholz, with 25.7% of the vote, gaining 206 Bundestag seats. Scholz became Chancellor of a coalition SPD-Freedom Democratic Party (FPD), and Green party government.) In September 2024 state elections, the AfD won the eastern state of Thuringia with 32.8% of the vote, and came in a close second in Saxony with almost 30.6%. The win in Thuringia, where Höcke is state party leader, marks the first time a far-right party has won a state election in Germany since WWII.  

Platform: AfD is known for its Eurosceptic and anti-immigration policies, emphasizing German identity, and criticism of Islam. 

European Parliament: The AfD won 15.9% of the German vote in the 2024 European legislative elections, edging out Scholz’s SPD and taking second place in Germany behind a center-right coalition (CDU/CSU), along with 15/96 German EP seats. Prior to the election, the AfD were expelled from Le Pen-Orbán’s EU coalition of far-right identitarian parties, now regrouped into Patriots for Europe (PfE). Instead, the AfD founded a very small—perhaps even more extreme—far-right coalition called Europe of Sovereign Nations (also called the Sovereigntists). Other members include smaller parties from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia.