Germany A vote for xenophobia
The far right Alternative for Germany hopes to win 20% of the votes in September's election
The terrorist attack in Berlin on December 19 has given Germany's xenophobic parties ammunition against immigration and refugees. Following the massacre in the Christmas market, the Alternative for Germany party (AfD, in German) attributed the attack to Angela Merkel's asylum policy. A spokesman for the far right party appealed to the public not to react with a “je suis Berlin” attitude but to vote for the AfD in order to secure the country's borders.
The party was founded in 2012 by economists against the euro who favoured a return to national currencies and economic liberalism. After initially poor electoral results, and after a series of internal struggles, in 2015 the most extreme branch of the party under Frauke Petry came to prominence. At the same time, one of the party's more moderate founders, Bernd Lucke, abandoned ship due to what he saw as the infiltration of “xenophobic extremists, anti-Semites and homophobes,” from both the far right and the far left. Petry took control of the party and electoral results began to improve to the point that the latest polls suggest the party is on course to become the third party in the state. This chemist and entrepreneur born in 1975 in East Germany, has a tendency to use the Donald Trump tactic of accusing the media of constantly twisting her words to cast the party in a bad light. Thus, after the outrage caused by statements she made suggesting firearms should be used to protect the country's borders against the influx of refugees, Petry justified herself by saying it was a legal option she saw as a final resort that she hoped would not be required. Naturally, she put the blame on the Merkel government for not enforcing the border laws.
Using the media
However, what Petry cannot deny –thanks to leaked emails she had no choice but to recognise as authentic– is that in truth it is she who uses the media to remain in the public spotlight with scandalous headlines. “Provocative statements are indispensable for us to build a media audience, to get the necessary attention,” she said in one of the leaked emails. Her justification when the messages were made public was: “All politicians do it.”
Yet the extreme approach of the AdF is not limited to immigration and refugees. In social matters, the party purports to support traditional family values, is against same-sex marriage and proposes making the disadvantaged do “community work” in order to get social benefits in return. The party is also in favour of nuclear power and in raising the military budget, while it also wants to improve relations with Putin's Russia. Yet, one of its most controversial proposals is to reduce treatment of the Nazi period in school textbooks to bring an end to what it calls the “cult of guilt”. It is no surprise that Petry has been dubbed by her detractors as Adolfina.
Link with Pegida
The Alternative for Germany party is often accused of being a political front for the Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) Islamaphobic neo-Nazi movement. Pegida has been active filling German streets with protests against the refugees and the government's asylum policies While Frauke has always done everything possible to distance her party from the Pegida movement, she has nevertheless admitted that some similarities with the party's ideas in certain areas “have been confused”
