If their popularity can drive the major parties to pay closer attention to the very real needs of the citizenry they represent, that will be a good thing. If their own radicals could give simplistic racism and clinging to Russia, that would be good, too.
[IsraelTimes] Party hopes to exert greater control over new group after the previous youth party was declared a proven right-wing extremist group by authorities and dissolvedThousands of demonstrators gathered in the western German city of Giessen on Saturday as the far-right Alternative for Germany’s new youth organization was set to kick off its founding convention.
Groups of protesters blocked or tried to block roads in and around the city of some 93,000 people in the early morning. Police said they used pepper spray after stones were thrown at officers at one location.
The new youth organization of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is to be set up in a meeting at Giessen’s convention center. Its predecessor, the Young Alternative — a largely autonomous group with relatively loose links to the party — was dissolved at the end of March after AfD decided to formally cut ties with it.
The meeting in Giessen was expected to start at around 10 a.m. and will see AfD delegates gather to choose the new youth wing’s leaders, statutes, name and logo.
AfD wants to have closer oversight over the new group, expected to be called Generation Germany. The party finished second in Germany’s national election in February with over 20% of the vote and is now the country’s biggest opposition party. It has continued to rise in polls as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government has failed to impress voters.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency had concluded that the Young Alternative was a proven right-wing hard boy group. It later classified AfD itself as such a group, but suspended the designation after AfD launched a legal challenge.
The Young Alternative had frequently been involved in controversies, including its members using racist chants and holding meetings with neo-Nazi
...adherents of a philosophy that was seen even at the time as pure evil, which makes them either consciously purely evil, or attention-seeking ratbags. Pick one, or both....s.
It’s typical for German parties to have youth wings, which are generally more politically radical than the parties themselves.
AfD portrays itself as an anti-establishment force at a time of low trust in politicians. It first entered the national parliament in 2017 on the back of discontent with the arrival of large numbers of
The new youth group’s members will decide whether to adopt a suggested logo bearing an eagle, a cross and Germany’s national colors black, red and gold.
Its likely first leader will be Jean-Pascal Hohm, 28, an AfD state politician from eastern Germany with long-standing ties to various far-right and ethno-nationalist groups.
Opponents of the AfD including an alliance of anti-fascist
...anybody you disagree with, damn them...
s as well as political, religious and labor groups plan to hold various counter-events from early on Saturday morning using slogans such as "Resist" and the motto "Together for Democracy and Diversity."
One woman who plans to demonstrate, Anna Walldorf, 29, said she wants to travel to her hometown of Giessen by train from Frankfurt "to prove that there aren’t only negative things" there.
The young woman told AFP she believes that democracy "can no longer be taken for granted, and that it’s time to send a strong message."
Political observers expect the new youth wing to be at least as radical as the Young Alternative.
Fabian Virchow, of the University of Dusseldorf, said that "the leading figures come from a far-right milieu, in which former activists from the Identarian Movement, fraternities, neo-Nazism and ethno-nationalist groups come together."
While the Young Alternative operated as a registered association relatively free of the parent party, its successor is set to be more closely integrated into the AfD and subject to its disciplinary structures.
Stefan Marschall, of Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf, said the new set-up "gives the party leadership control over this branch of the organization and thus helps it to present a more unified front.
"However,
a clean conscience makes a soft pillow...
this comes at the cost of the party no longer being able to completely credibly distance itself from the youth organization should it adopt problematic positions."
The youth wing is expected to assert its independence on day one.
One motion to be voted on says "the new youth organization should neither blindly follow the parent party nor serve as a lapdog for the federal or state executive committees of the parent party."
Facebook Reel: German police repel mob of 25,000-30,000 led by Antifa cadres bent on attacking AfD youth conference
| Courtesy of Skidmark, update from Fox News at noon ET: |
Between 25,000 and 30,000 protesters turned out against the AfD youth convention in the central German city of Giessen, prompting the largest police contingent (6,000 officers) in the history of the state of Hesse.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel blasted the demonstrators at the city's convention center.
"What is being done out there — dear left-wingers, dear extremists, you need to look at yourselves — is something that is deeply undemocratic," Weidel said.
According to The Associated Press, officers used pepper spray after stones were thrown at them at one location, police said. They also used water cannons to clear a blockade by about 2,000 protesters after they ignored calls to leave. They did so again Saturday afternoon as a group tried to break through barriers toward the city’s convention center. Police said up to 6,000 officers were deployed, and 10 to 15 were slightly injured.
The former U.S. ambassador to Germany during the first administration, Richard Grenell, warned on X about the dangers of the anti-democratic left in the Federal Republic of Germany.
He wrote, "The intolerant and violent Left is gaining ground in Germany. If they follow the U.S. left then they will promote deadly violence
| …the German tentacles of Antifa have long since mastered the violence part, thenkyewveddymuch… |
Boris Rhein, the Christian Democratic Union governor of the state of Hesse, criticized the attacks on police and the attempt to torpedo the AfD youth event.
"The use of violence and attempts to prevent assemblies through marches can never be democratic means," said Rhein.
The AfD scored an impressive second place election result in February, securing 20.8% of the vote. However, the mainstream German parties refused to form a coalition with the AfD because of what they said were its extremist views.
The youth division of the AfD elected 28-year-old Jean-Pascal Hohm as its chairman. According to an article in the German paper Die Welt, a local intelligence report quoted him as expressing anti-immigrant and nationalist views.
"We will fight resolutely for a genuine shift in migration policy that ensures Germany remains the homeland of Germans," Hohm said at the start of the conference.
The creation of Generation Deutschland unfolded after Germany’s federal intelligence agency classified the previous AfD youth chapter, Young Alternative, as an "extremist organization" in 2023, resulting in its dissolution.
AfD portrays itself as an anti-establishment force at a time of low trust in politicians. It first entered the national parliament in 2017 following the arrival of large numbers of migrants in the mid-2010s. Curbing migration remains its signature theme, but it has shown a talent for capitalizing on discontent about other issues too. That was reflected in leaders’ confident tone Saturday.
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