AfD: Gauland against Meuthen - "Damaged half of the party"

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The AfD honorary chairman Alexander Gauland has harshly criticized the style of the party leader Jörg Meuthen.

At the opening of the federal party congress in Kalkar at the end of November, he sharply attacked those party friends “who are only too happy to fool around” or who, like Gauland, had used terms such as “Corona dictatorship”.

Gauland told the German Press Agency that Meuthen “gave a speech with which he damaged half of the party.

I haven't understood why until today. ”But since then he has not sought a conversation with the party chairman either.

Gauland explained that he would have liked to respond to Meuthen's speech in Kalkar, but then had to spend the second day of the party congress in the hospital.

His health is gradually getting better.

Gauland (79), who was AfD chairman together with Meuthen from December 2017 to December 2019, accused Meuthen of trying to "push" the new co-chairman Tino Chrupalla aside.

He added: "He should actually know from his own painful experience with Frauke Petry that you shouldn't do that."

"There were a lot 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

"Kubitschek is an intellectual who has nothing to do with the party"

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If the AfD wants to be a real alternative to the established parties, Gauland believes it should not be based on the protection of the constitution.

"We shouldn't use what the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, says as the yardstick for our actions," said Gauland.

“Unfortunately there are some people here who think too strongly in the direction of the protection of the constitution;

But you can't be a real opposition like that, ”said Gauland, who heads the AfD parliamentary group together with Alice Weidel.

According to participants, Haldenwang announced a few days ago at the conference of interior ministers that his authority will probably make a decision in January on the question of a possible suspected observation of the entire AfD party.

So far, only the "wing" founded in 2015 by the Thuringian AfD state chief Björn Höcke and formally dissolved in the meantime has been observed nationwide as a right-wing extremist movement.

The youth organization, the Junge Alternative, is a suspected case.

The use of informational means is also permitted in a suspected case.

He personally has no reservations about the Institute for State Policy founded by Götz Kubitschek in Schnellroda, which is also classified as a suspected case by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, said Gauland.

The institute is seen as a hinge between various groups of the so-called New Right.

"Wing" fans in particular have come and gone there in recent years.

"Götz Kubitschek is an intellectual who has nothing to do with the party," said Gauland.

Kubitschek did not pose a threat to the AfD or to society, the faction leader said.

"He is a friend of Mr. Höcke and calls me from time to time."

Gauland advocates contact with “lateral thinkers” and Pegida

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When asked about the “lateral thinkers” movement founded by critics of the government's anti-corona measures, Gauland said: “We are a movement party that should also maintain contact with certain protest groups.

This applies to "lateral thinking", but also to Pegida in Dresden or the association Zukunft Heimat from Cottbus. "

The AfD must, however, always be careful that "some crazy people" do not register events in the name of the party, he added.

“It's always a dance on a rope, when you can't fall down.” In September 2018, AfD officials marched through Chemnitz on a “funeral march” with neo-Nazis after a German was killed in the city in an argument with refugees was.

The comparisons with the final phase of the Weimar Republic, which are occasionally used in the public debate about the AfD and the protection of the constitution, are "historically foolish," said Gauland.

All parties in Germany, "even most parts of the Left Party", are firmly committed to the Basic Law.

The AfD will nevertheless "not escape observation by the protection of the constitution anyway".

Because this authority “has an order to fulfill”, speculated the group leader.

"We will defend ourselves against it legally and then have success."