On Dec. 20, 2024, tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk posted (archived) on the site: "Only the AfD can save Germany." Following the post, which had more than 50 million views at the time of this writing, claims abounded about the politics of the political party, whose full name is Alternative für Deutschland (English translation: Alternative for Germany).
(@elonmusk / X)
Musk doubled down on the claims in the following days, repeating (archived) his support and calling (archived) Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy a "huge liar" after he told news outlets and wrote on X (archived) that the AfD was a "neo-Nazi party".
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine, a respected German weekly paper that collated several opinion polls carried out in Germany throughout December, the AfD is currently polling in second place for the country's parliamentary election, expected in February 2025.
The party, currently fronted by federal spokespersons Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, has 76 seats in the German Bundestag, the country's parliament. It is the largest of the opposition parties.
The Federal Agency for Civic Education, a German federal public authority that promotes awareness of democracy and political participation, described AfD as a "right-wing populist party."
However, factions of the party have battled extremist or, as seen above, Nazi classifications for years. In 2020, the German domestic intelligence services (BfV) declared the party's Der Flügel faction a "proven extremist endeavor." Der Flügel, which translates to "The Wing," had been under investigation for suspected extremism alongside the party's youth faction, Junge Alternative, since 2019, according to the BfV. Following the classification, Der Flügel was dissolved following a vote in AfD in 2020.
In July 2024 the former leader of the faction, Björn Höcke, was ordered to pay multiple fines for using the banned Nazi slogan "Everything for Germany" at an event. This was the second time Höcke was ordered to pay a fine for the use of the slogan. He is appealing one of the fines, according to reports. Höcke was charged under the German Criminal Code's Section 84, paragraph 1, section 4, which prohibits the dissemination of propaganda material "the content of which is intended to further the activities of a former National Socialist organisation."
National socialism is the political ideology practiced by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.
The German Criminal Code includes additional paragraphs specifically about National Socialism (emphasis ours):
(3) Whoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the kind indicated in section 6 (1) of the Code of Crimes against International Law in a manner suited to causing a disturbance of the public peace incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine.
(4) Whoever publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner which violates the dignity of the victims by approving of, glorifying or justifying National Socialist tyranny and arbitrary rule incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or a fine.
Aside from Höcke's individual charges, the AfD itself has not been found guilty of breaches of the above sections of the German Criminal Code pertaining to national socialism.
Policies Include Closing Borders, Ban on Full-Face Veils
The AfD was founded in 2013, following the Euro Crisis. The party continues to argue for the withdrawal of Germany from the eurozone (the group of countries that use the Euro as their currency). In 2024, a policy on its website said Germany must "abandon the transfer union and leave the eurozone."
On immigration, the party wrote: "The borders must be closed immediately in order to immediately put an end to the unregulated mass immigration of predominantly professionally unqualified people into our country and its social systems."
On religion, the party wrote: "The AfD fully recognizes freedom of belief, conscience and religion. However, it demands that laws set limits on the practice of religion." In the policy subsection titled "Islam does not belong in Germany," the party advocated for "a general ban on full-face veils in public and in public service." It is worth noting that this policy was inspired by similar legislation in France, and so not unique to AfD.
On the key issue of abortion, AfD's policy reads as follows:
Unborn children also have a right to life. Far too often, this right is subordinated to self-realization or social fears about the future. The AfD wants to prevent such fears by providing concrete help for families in all situations, in particular by facilitating and promoting the life-saving option of adoption. Conflict counseling must actually serve to protect life.
We reject all efforts to declare the killing of the unborn a human right.
Further to this, the party also dismissed "gender research" as "not a serious science," stating that under its policies: "The federal and state governments are no longer allowed to provide funding for "gender research" or to fill "gender professorships."
Translations in this article are provided by DeepL.com.