Alexander Gauland once called the AfD a "fermented bunch" to rewrite the permanent unrest in his party. And it's time again for the right-wing populists this year. Withdrawals such as that of the former Saxony-Anhalt country chief André Poggenburg, but above all the decision of the constitutional protection to take the AfD more targeted, fuel the course debate: how radical is the party outwardly?

The domestic intelligence service had recently publicly declared the AfD a "test case" - against which the party is legally resisting. The right-wing network "The Wing" to the Thuringian state boss Björn Höcke and the Brandenburg state chairman Andreas Kalbitz are even classified as a "suspected case" together with the youth organization Junge Alternative (JA), which also allows the use of intelligence agents.

Did the ultra-right in the AfD get on the defensive? It does not look like that right now. On the contrary, party representatives, who are among the more moderate forces, fear that the influence of the far right grows and Höcke and Co. try to expand their power base in the AfD.

Recently, Helmut Seifen, one of two chiefs of the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD, made it clear in a "memorandum on the state of the AfD-NRW": Anyone looking beyond the country's borders will find that "the wing" is an independent party party acts ".

Soifen, formerly CDU member, lies in NRW with his co-chairman and "wing" supporters Thomas Röckemann cross, he accuses the Höcke supporters to build on an "operational level" a structure, "to the elected representatives the board can operate its own personnel, organization and property policy. "

Especially two clubs called soaps that are active in the "wing" environment:

  • the registered since the beginning of May 2018 in Erfurt "Conservative!", for which the "wing" on the Internet aggressively advertises for cash injections. In the register of associations, among others, the Thuringian AFD member of parliament Jürgen Pohl is listed as chairman, a close Höcke confidant.
  • and the registered since summer 2016 in Paderborn club "Alternative Cultural Congress Germany" (AKD). Members of the association board are members of the leadership of the AfD district association in Paderborn. The AKD invited in the autumn of last year to his "Hermanns meeting" including Höcke.

The "wing" operates, to the annoyance of his party critics, meanwhile, also its own fan shop on the Internet. There are T-shirts with the inscription "Höcke was right!" as well as shopping bags and cups with the image of the AfD politician and the slogan "Go Upright!".

AfD-Mann Soifen accuses Höcke of taking the "honest" members in "hostage", incumbents and members would have to "honest and urgently consider whether we want to tolerate side organizations in our party." The anger over soaps is so great among some AfD supporters of the right-wing spectrum that there is now a motion for the next Federal Convention - a kind of small party congress - in which the federal executive is called upon to "immediately apply for a party exclusion". The reason: He had the party by his utterances "serious damage" inflicted.

Höcke warns against splitting the AfD

Soaps are not mentioned, but probably meant when Höcke writes in a recent essay by "Enemies" who played into the hands of the authorities - this calculation reads: "Create confusion and panic within the party and agitate the camps together ". In a series of articles for the right-wing "Germany courier" Höcke warned against the "attempt of a split".

Some in the AfD scented the "great opportunity for a 'cleanup' of unpopular, patriotic forces," writes the Thuringian head of state. The "swing of the Verfassungsschutzkeule" should shock the "allegedly" radical forces in the party and lure the 'moderate forces'.

In his text Höcke accomplishes the trick of excluding himself from any suspicion of extremism: "Of course," all currents and 'wings' would indeed have a self-cleaning task, a "principled party" like the AfD would have to "consistently be extremists, madmen and provocateurs separate ".

Gauland stands to Höcke

Regarding Höcke in the past, such demands have always come from the "Alternatives Mitte" (AM), which sees itself as a moderate counterpart to the "wing". But the AM counts only a few colleagues, their influence is low.

Some of the self-proclaimed moderates also find the appeal of the former party founder Bernd Lucke unhelpful, who these days called on moderate AFD members to break with the "right-wing extremists in the AfD". Luckes objection, says the Berlin AM sympathizer Frank Hansel, was "counterproductive." The self-cleaning forces in the AfD would be successful in the end, believes the Parliamentary Managing Director of the AFD Group in the Berlin House of Representatives.

DPA

Gauland and Höcke at the state party convention of the AfD Thuringia

Hansel, in the 1990s in the SPD, dreams of the AfD as a "party of political realism from the middle of society", but "only without the wing, as we still know it today - as an autocratic, leader-oriented power machine, to its own Loyalty chains to flush upwards ". That, says Hansel, "must and must recognize Gauland, if he wants to go down in history as the one who has made it."

So far, however, Gauland does not hear such calls. Höckes position in the AfD does not seem weakened, Gauland and co-chief Jörg Meuthen continue to him, they are committed to be able to bind the "wing" a certain electorate to the party.

In fact, Höcke, if you believe the polls, in the state election in late October in Thuringia has good chances to get more than 20 percent. His "wing" colleague Kalbitz could achieve similar values ​​in Brandenburg.