Alternative for Germany (AfD)

The Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) is a nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal par­ty in Ger­many, found­ed in 2013 ini­tial­ly as a Euroscep­tic move­ment opposed to the euro­zone bailout poli­cies. Since then, it has shift­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the right, embrac­ing nation­al­ist, anti-immi­gra­tion, and anti-Islam posi­tions. The AfD pro­motes a strong empha­sis on Ger­man sov­er­eign­ty, tra­di­tion­al cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and law-and-order poli­cies, often oppos­ing mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and what it describes as the ero­sion of nation­al val­ues by glob­al­ist and lib­er­al elites. While it brands itself as a defend­er of Ger­man inter­ests and demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples, crit­ics and watch­dog orga­ni­za­tions, such as the Fed­er­al Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion (Bun­de­samt für Ver­fas­sungss­chutz), have clas­si­fied parts of the par­ty as right-wing extrem­ist, par­tic­u­lar­ly its for­mer youth wing and some region­al branch­es. The AfD’s rhetoric and plat­form align it close­ly with broad­er Euro­pean nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive move­ments that reject supra­na­tion­al gov­er­nance and advo­cate for cul­tur­al homo­gene­ity and nation­al primacy.

Sources:

• Bun­deszen­trale für poli­tis­che Bil­dung (bpb): Alter­na­tive für Deutsch­land (AfD)
• Bun­desmin­is­teri­um des Innern: Ver­fas­sungss­chutzbericht 2022,
• BBC: Ger­many’s AfD: How right-wing is nation­al­ist Alter­na­tive for Germany?