At the beginning of this year, he dissolved his hitherto youth organization, Young Alternative, for being too extremist, and you already have to be an extremist for the AfD extremists to consider you an extremist. Last weekend, the party held the inaugural assembly of its new youth. The extreme right tried to carry out a facelift to show a somewhat friendlier image, but they did not succeed. A guy who looked like Marvel’s Loki, aspiring to be part of the board of directors, got up on the stage, spoke for four minutes with the ‘r’ that Adolf Hitler used to use and they got the story wrong..
The appearance of this man, Alexander Eichwald, ruined all attempts at renewal in Alternative for Germany. So much so, that the party has had no choice but to announce his expulsion as a member. According to the German media The mirrorin the formation led by Alice Weidel. But the problem, in reality, was more the commotion created after the fact than the annoyance itself that the content of the speech given by Eichwald may cause in the AfD, since it did not escape too much from what they usually defend. Among other things, the young German criticized those who defend that a person born in Germany be automatically considered German. “They would never say that a pig born in a stable is a cow”Eichwald snapped, among other gems.
Within the AfD there are those who have raised suspicions about Eichwald’s objective, almost as if he were actually an intruder who wanted to destroy the image of the party. Until his participation in the assembly, Eichwald worked for the AfD municipal group in the city of Herford (he has already been fired). According to Maximilian Kneller, Alternative for Germany deputy, the young man had been active in the party for a few weeks, and those who knew him say that he never used that Hitlerian diction in the ‘r’. At the assembly of the new youth of the extreme right, Eichwald himself justified himself by saying that this way of pronouncing it was due to his Russian-German origin.
Deliberate or not, the appearance of Eichwald has been a new blow to the image of an Alternative for Germany aware that it will never be able to govern if it does not move away from that Hitlerian heritage. AfD wants to be a far right that seems less far rightalso because they know that in Germany they could become illegal if it is shown that they pose a real risk to the constitutional order, as the intelligence services suspect.
In The mirror They regret that what happened about Eichwald could distract attention from the rest of the messages that were heard at the congress. “Before and after Eichwald, young AfD members gave speeches that, while less reminiscent of Hitler and Goebbels in style, were no less radical in content than Eichwald’s,” writes journalist Fabian Hillebrand. One of the candidates, Kevin Dorow, even used a slogan that the Hitler Youth used in the past. Another, Julia Gehrkens, “received thunderous applause” for advocating “mass remigration.”
The new AfD youth leader, Jean-Pascal Hohm, is another acquaintance of the Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In AfD they say that it is still in testing, but they know it well. According to the German organization, Hohm “personally and privately participates in the far-right subculture” and “distinguishes between first and second class citizens based on ethnic and biological criteria.” , the Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Antisemitism released a video in which Hohm is seen with ultras from the Energie Cottbus football club while they “scream anti-Semitic slogans” and “give the Hitler salute” (you can’t see him raise his arm).
As many analysts in Germany have reported, in the end AfD wants to transform its youth, but only through a change in the name, logo or general image, because, ultimately, Its members are the same as always.
