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A ban on Young Alternative would have been far easier to implement legally, which explains why members moved to dissolve it. The group’s former leader said as much in the lead-up to Germany’s nation election on Feb. 23.
“It is unrealistic to ban a party that has over 20 percent of the popular vote,” said Hannes Gnauck, leader of the AfD’s youth branch. “But attacking where we are weakest, namely the unregistered association of the Young Alternative, is realistic.”
Creating an AfD youth wing that is under the party’s control will protect the new group by significantly raising the legal hurdle for banning it. Under the new structure, all members of the youth wing over the age of 16 would automatically become party members.
“There are many indications that the new youth organization will become more professional and that it will become stronger overall,” said Heinze, the University of Trier researcher. “It will, for example, have access to more financial resources, because it will have more dues-paying members.”
The party’s now-dissolved youth wing had become increasingly influential in recent years, attracting many young voters with online campaigns that included AI-generated videos depicting the deportation (“remigration”) of migrants from Germany en masse. Members of the youth wing also created a deportation-themed video game, while young far-right influencers flooded social media networks like TikTok.
The AfD finished second among voters aged 18 to 21 in the country’s Feb. 23 election with 21 percent, an increase of 14 percentage points over the previous national election.
According to some party members, starting a new youth group will help the AfD present itself as a more palatable option to voters who have long rejected the party due to its extremist stigma.
“Anything that is a step towards normality will of course be well received,” said Matthias Moosdorf, a national parliamentarian for the AfD.
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