The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), buoyed by recent success, will launch a new youth wing Saturday to replace one disbanded by the party after it gained notoriety for its radicalism.
Mass rallies by civil society groups hope to draw tens of thousands of protesters to the event’s host town of Giessen over the weekend, where thousands of police will also be deployed.
The anti-immigration AfD became Germany’s main opposition at February’s general election in which it won a record score of over 20 percent and hopes to make further gains at state elections next year in its eastern heartlands.
The meeting in Giessen is expected to start at around 1000 local time (0900 GMT) and will see AfD delegates gather to choose the new youth wing’s leaders, statutes, name and logo.
It will replace the Junge Alternative (JA), which was classified as an extremist group by intelligence services and then disbanded by the AfD earlier this year, pre-empting a possible ban.
The JA had frequently been involved in controversies, including its members using racist chants and holding meetings with neo-Nazis.
Protesters to gather
The new AfD youth wing is expected to be called “Generation Deutschland” or “Youth Germania” and members will decide whether to adopt a suggested logo bearing an eagle, a cross and Germany’s national colours black, red and gold.
Its likely first leader will be Jean-Pascal Hohm, 28, an AfD state lawmaker from eastern Germany with long-standing ties to various far-right and ethno-nationalist groups.
Opponents of the AfD including an alliance of anti-fascists as well as political, religious and labour 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”.
But it remained unclear whether they will be allowed near the conference, where they could block access to the around 1,000 AfD delegates, or will have to demonstrate in different parts of the city.
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”.
Far-right milieu
In May, Germany’s domestic security service declared the AfD as a whole a “right-wing extremist” organisation, fuelling calls to ban it.
The party has challenged the designation in the courts.
Political observers expect the new youth wing to be at least as radical as the JA.
Fabian Virchow, of the University of Duesseldorf, said that “the leading figures come from a far-right milieu, in which former activists from the Identitarian Movement, fraternities, neo-Nazism and ethno-nationalist groups come together”.
While the JA 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 Duesseldorf, said the new set-up “gives the party leadership control over this branch of the organisation and thus helps it to present a more unified front.
“However, this comes at the cost of the party no longer being able to completely credibly distance itself from the youth organisation 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 organisation should neither blindly follow the parent party nor serve as a lapdog for the federal or state executive committees of the parent party”.
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