Young alternative: parts of the AfD want to act harder on offspring

Only a week and a half ago, the young AfD was at a federal congress in Magdeburg a new leadership structure and decided amendments to the statutes. The goal of the "Young Alternative" (YES): to avoid possible observation by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. There, the JA is currently being run as a "suspected case", together with the right-wing party network "The Wing" to the AfD politician Björn Höcke.

In Magdeburg, among other things, the JA had also adopted measures with which it can separate itself more quickly from extremist members in the future.

But the most recent results are extremely critical of the "Alternate Middle" (AM), which was once established in the AfD as a counterpart to Höckes right "The Wing". This is from a two-page letter AM spokesman Jens Wilharm out, which is the SPIEGEL.

It not only draws a critical stocktaking of the recent JA congress, but also places concrete expectations on the AFD Federal Board and the regional governing bodies. The committees should "take a very close look at the developments in the offspring and not allow themselves to be soothed by word phrases," they say. Specifically, the AM calls on the AFD state associations to withdraw those JA associations their status as a youth organization, which would have "too far from the mother party" away.

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Poster with a portrait of former Chancellor Otto von Bismarck at the JA Congress

The JA has experienced a veritable wave of withdrawals of members in recent months, from once 2000 people are currently still 1600 belong to the offspring.

The reason was increasingly extremist tendencies in their own ranks, which were also publicized by media reports. Recently, the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (FAZ) quoted from a chat protocol of the Hessian jean-offspring, according to which the regional executive board member Elliot Murray is said to have demanded the death penalty for politicians who "betray their people". The young member should no longer belong to the JA. In Lower Saxony, the JA had dissolved its own national association in November 2018 because of similar incidents, previously he got by the local State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the observation, as well as the Bremen JA Association by the local intelligence agency. Also in Baden-Wuerttemberg the JA national federation is observed by the protection of the constitution since November 2018.

The letter from the "Alternatives Mitte" deals explicitly with these three developments: "The fact that this could happen was not least due to the fact that with a certain amount of equanimity problematic developments within the youth organization were watched for a long time - if not for the developments even covered. "

It is said that not only those responsible in the youth organization itself, but also members of the parent party are addressed. "Who converses with party members, also learns not infrequently that they would not find it good if their own children join in the boys alternative," said the AM.

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JA chairman Damian Lohr in Magdeburg

The AM also goes to the recent Federal Congress - on which the Rhineland-Palatinate AFD MP Damian Lohr was elected as new chairman. What one could read about it sounds like instrumental reason. "Program positions will now be adjusted after the constitutional protection reprimanded them in his report," is the criticism. However, those who only want to rewrite problematic program passages in order to "prevent tactically the attack surface did not understand the real problem".

The mother party is also clearly criticized. She had "initially not done much", the JA seems to have Magdeburg "gained some time" to "prove himself again". Skepticism for improvement also clearly shimmers through in the AM letter. Many problems in the JA could have only increased up to now because there was a sufficient will to resolutely oppose them. "It is unlikely that this encounter will improve after the exit from the more moderate camp," notes the paper.

The AM is also on the recent Baden-Württemberg AfD state party convention, on which last weekend the moderate representative Bernd Gögel with 380 against 320 votes against the representative of the right wing, Emil Sänze, prevailed at a temporarily turbulent party congress.

The JA representatives had voted there together with the supporters of the "Stuttgart call" - a few months of circulating signature list of the right wing - to prevent moderate candidates in the newly elected regional board and to bring those who vehemently "against the drag and adherence to red lines "resisted. "Fortunately, this request was unsuccessful," it says in the AM letter.