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There have been many bitter arguments in the short history of the AfD.
But on Sunday big shovels were added to the continuation of the federal party conference in Kalkar, North Rhine-Westphalia.
That was also clear to the 500 or more delegates.
"We are currently setting fire to our own house," said one of them around noon after he had witnessed the hostility in which his party friends had attacked one another.
A heated debate raged between the camps for a good two hours.
"Are you crazy to start a debate about our party chairman?", Norbert Kleinwächter, member of the Bundestag from Brandenburg, asked the critics of party leader Jörg Meuthen in great excitement.
"Dr.
Meuthen, your time in the AfD is over, ”said Kleinwachter's Thuringian parliamentary colleague Jürgen Pohl.
Stephan Brandner, also a member of the Bundestag and also a member of the AfD executive committee, said that Meuthen had "caused serious damage" to the party.
The latter replied that he was being attacked with "ideologically motivated perversions".
"A leader into nowhere" is Meuthen, countered Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, member of the state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt.
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Both camps were aware of what was going on.
"This is not a game," said the member of the Bundestag Dirk Spaniel, a sharp critic of Meuthen.
"At the moment something is breaking out here that has been smoldering for a long time," stated the Hessian AfD parliamentary group leader Robert Lambrou, who is committed to Meuthen.
But nothing was decided in the dispute.
Rather, the delegates simply stopped at around 12.50 p.m. and let the conflict continue to smolder.
However, with greatly increased heat.
How did this come about at a party congress whose topic should actually be the determination of the AfD on a previously missing concept in social and pension policy?
Meuthen's clear message to the Völkisch
The internal battle was triggered by what had already organizationally overshadowed the party congress: the corona pandemic.
That is at least belittled by the majority in the AfD.
It was a matter of honor in the party to gather despite the high number of infections, to complain in advance against strict hygiene requirements (unsuccessful) and to only reluctantly comply with the mask requirement even at seats.
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But quite independently of such party convention regulations, many in the AfD - mostly supporters of the officially disbanded völkisch wing - had taken the government's corona protective measures as an opportunity in recent months to take the party's radicalization to extremes on this issue too.
For example, on November 18, when the Bundestag decided to reform the Infection Protection Act, some members of the Bundestag invited people to parliament who then harassed politicians from other parties in the hallways.
Because of such actions, which included the openly supportive participation of numerous mandate and functionaries in “lateral thinking” demonstrations with their conspiratorial ideological and right-wing extremist components, the party has fallen into disrepute in recent weeks.
The polls are falling.
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In view of all this, Meuthen used his opening speech on Saturday for a violent attack.
"Like pubescent schoolboys," said Meuthen, the members of the Bundestag who invited those troublemakers into the House of Representatives behaved.
Meuthen rejected the term "Corona dictatorship", with which, among other things, the AfD honorary chairman and parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland had dealt with.
“We don't live in a dictatorship,” said Meuthen in Kalkar, “otherwise we would hardly be able to hold this party congress today.” Anyone who speaks of an “enabling law” in the Infection Protection Act - as many in the party do - is operating “an implicit trivialization “The Nazi era.
"There were lots of whistles and boos"
With a frontal attack on the right wing of his party, the AfD chairman Jörg Meuthen caused a stir at the party congress.
How torn the AfD is can be seen in the reactions to the speech, as WELT reporter Jens Reupert illustrates.
Source: WELT / Jens Reupert
And because it should actually be about social policy, Meuthen, who was very reform-minded in this political field, also turned against still orienting himself towards a social insurance system according to Otto von Bismarck's standards.
Gauland is a great admirer of Bismarck, especially in social policy.
So it was no wonder that Meuthen's speech hit hard - and polarized.
Around a third of the delegates applauded enthusiastically;
the other two thirds either remained passive or booed indignantly.
Gauland immediately took a distance to the speech and called it “in parts divisive” on the Phoenix TV station.
Co-parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel expressed herself more cautiously, but warned against “defaming” the “lateral thinkers”.
Alice Weidel in conversation with Meuthen's co-chairman Tino Chrupalla
Source: Getty Images / Sascha Schuermann
How excited Weidel was, too, was shown in the interview when she broke it off because she thought that the moderator had used the word "National Socialist" with a view to the socio-political ideas of the far right of the party.
In fact, he said "social nationalist".
Nevertheless, Weidel left angrily ahead of time.
The Meuthen warehouse now dominates the board even more
But in the hall on Saturday it didn't look like a storm would break out against Meuthen.
Conversely, in the early evening, by-elections for vacant seats in the federal executive committee were all favorites Meuthens: the previous deputy federal treasurer Carsten Hütter was promoted to the treasurer, the member of the Bundestag Joana Cotar and the AfD federal auditor Christian Waldheim joined the committee.
With them, Meuthen can even increase its majority on the board.
But on Sunday morning came the counter-attack.
The large group of those who felt attacked by Meuthen's speech spoke out in favor of a motion that had already been submitted but was initially considered to be without a chance: The Freiburg district association with the local councilor Dubravko Mandic - who is on the far right of the AfD and on Saturday called for the exclusion of the press from the party congress - wanted to disapprove of Meuthen with the motion because of “divisive behavior”.
Meuthen opponents: the Freiburg city councilor Dubravko Mandic
Source: dpa / Rolf Vennenbernd
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The application received a lot of momentum when Birgit Bessin, AfD-Landesvize in Brandenburg, provided it with an amendment, according to which the party congress “accepted the allegations from the welcoming speech by Prof. Dr.
Meuthen ”should disapprove and reject.
Then the battle began.
Gauland was not present at those debates because he had to leave in the morning for health reasons.
The empty seat of AfD parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland.
According to a spokesman, a small vein had burst in his nose
Source: dpa / Rolf Vennenbernd
What was remarkable about the clashes was not only the anger directed against Meuthen.
But also how openly some people admit to supporting the "lateral thinkers": "The 'lateral thinkers' movement must of course be our partner on the street," said Saxony's AfD country chief Jörg Urban.
Others said that those demonstrators were AfD voters and that they shouldn't be offended.
Lateral thinker compares herself to Sophie Scholl
At a demonstration by the “lateral thinker” scene against the federal government's corona measures, a speaker compared herself with Sophie Scholl, who was executed by the Nazis.
Then she is interrupted by a man.
He could no longer act as a folder for “such nonsense”.
Source: WORLD
But then suddenly the dispute fizzled out, in which at times it had seemed as if there would be a decision-making vote between the right-wing radical to extreme camp on the one hand and Meuthen's supporters, who despite all the furor tried to restrain them, on the other.
As the hostilities began to draw in, Bessin and Mandic got entangled in detailed statutory questions about how their two formulations could be combined in one motion.
There was a pause.
The Bundestag member Kay Gottschalk used this to demand that this application be left out.
This was voted on immediately.
Gottschalk's proposal received a majority.
Suddenly everything was simply over without a vote.
The room suddenly emptied.
Of course, the question arises as to how the party congress could vote for “not addressing” after the delegates had dealt intensively with the subject for a good two hours.
Social policy?
Was there something?
As a result of this party congress, the AfD members have seen the irreconcilable differences in the party as never before.
Another result is that the AfD now has a socio-political concept.
After a debate that lasted only a few hours, in which numerous drafts for major social reforms were voted down very quickly, almost 90 percent of the delegates decided in favor of the Federal Program Commission's main proposal, which had only been slightly changed.
Accordingly, the party wants to stick to the existing pay-as-you-go system for pensions.
But since this is more and more burdened for demographic reasons, the AfD wants on the one hand to remove the civil servant status of some of the civil servants, so that it would then be employees who can be used to finance the pension insurance.
On the other hand, one wants to reverse the demographic development.
Among other things, through very high surcharges and relief for parents.
A motion supported by Meuthen, according to which models of a basic income or a negative income tax should be tested, was wiped off the table with “non-involvement”.