BERLIN (AFP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany party said Tuesday it would replace its radical youth wing, which has been classified an extremist group by intelligence services.
The anti-immigration AfD, as it is known, is in second place in opinion polls ahead of a legislative election expected in February in Europe’s largest economy.
A party spokesman said that the leadership wanted to change its statutes to replace its Junge Alternative (“Young Alternative”) youth organization.
Its members, mostly aged 16 to 30, have frequently been implicated in using racist chants and holding meetings with neo-Nazis.
In April 2023 the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the Junge Alternative as an extremist organization, saying it was xenophobic and likely to adopt “non-peaceful behavior” toward people perceived as foreign.
The Junge Alternative is widely considered to be more extreme than the AfD overall. The move comes as the party seeks to position itself more broadly than a single-issue party that rails against immigrants and Islam.
The decision to dissolve and replace its youth wing will have to be approved by a two-thirds majority at a party conference in January.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said that the change would aim at “binding the youth organization closer to the party,” by ensuring members also join the main party.
“This is important so that the mother party has ways to intervene in the youth organization, which it does not currently have,” Weidel told reporters.
According to the party, the Junge Alternative has around 2,400 members, of whom only half are also AfD members.
“The AfD is rightly worried that the youth wing might soon be banned and wants to preempt this,” said Dominik Schumacher from the Mobile Beratung organisation which combats right-wing extremism.
But Schumacher told a press briefing that the AfD’s move to replace the Junge Alternative was “smoke and mirrors.”
“Changing the legal status of the Junge Alternative or giving it a new name won’t change anything about its impact,” he said. “The same activists will be involved tomorrow as were involved yesterday.”
Junge Alternative chairman Hannes Gnauck said he supported the proposal.
“The highest priority is protection from a ban,” Gauck told the Welt broadcaster, adding that a new organization directly attached to the party was a legally “safer option.”
Germany is set to go to the polls in late February after the collapse of center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition last month.
The AfD is currently scoring around 19% in polls, putting it in second place behind the conservative main opposition CDU/CSU, which is at roughly 33%.
In September the AfD became the first far-right party in Germany’s post-World War II history to win a state election, in the former east German region of Thuringia.
However, all of Germany’s other major parties have refused to enter coalitions with the AfD at the state or national level.
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By Agence France-Presse