The Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, with its anti-immigrant and nationalist platform, has long been the pariah of German politics. Its members have been fined for Nazi slogans and labeled extremist by the government.
Ahead of Sunday’s national parliamentary election, a new band of influencers has found a voice among voters by bringing a more youthful edge to the party known for its provocations and controversies. They welcome the scorn of protesters, journalists and the mainstream political parties. Some of them still trade jokes about Hitler and Jews, along with the occasional Sig Heil salute.
Their party’s energy and ethos has won approving nods from Elon Musk, an adviser to President Trump, and from Vice President JD Vance. And they have helped elevate the party to second in the polls, even as the political establishment has kept the AfD out of government as part of a longstanding commitment to sideline parties deemed extreme.
They are the changing face of the AfD.
When Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, 28, first went to an AfD event in 2017, she was surrounded by retirees. “They could have been my grandparents,” she said. Things have changed. Young people who might have been punks or hippies in a different time are now finding the AfD, she said — and posting about it.
Ms. Kaiser is a parliamentary candidate and a personal assistant in the office of Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD. She canvassed for the party on a frigid Saturday morning in Sittensen, a small town outside Hamburg. She picked the spot because she had been uninvited from a panel discussion there because of lingering controversy over a social media post that violated a law against hate speech.
In 2021, Ms. Kaiser on Facebook criticized Germany’s acceptance of immigrants from Afghanistan. In the post, she asked Hamburg’s mayor whether he was creating a “welcome culture for gang rapes?” The government fined her 6,000 euros ($6,275) and convicted her of inciting racial hatred. Her online following grew.
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