Background In September 2012,
Alexander Gauland,
Bernd Lucke, and the journalist
Konrad Adam founded the political group Electoral Alternative 2013 () in
Bad Nauheim, to oppose German federal policies concerning the
eurozone crisis, and to confront German-supported bailouts for poorer southern European countries. Their
manifesto was endorsed by several economists, journalists, and business leaders, and stated that the
eurozone had proven to be "
unsuitable" as a currency area and that southern European states were "sinking into poverty under the competitive pressure of the euro". Some candidates of what would become AfD sought election in
Lower Saxony as part of the
Electoral Alternative 2013 in alliance with the
Free Voters, an association participating in local elections without specific federal or foreign policies, and received 1% of the vote. In February 2013, the group decided to found a new party to compete in the 2013 federal election; according to a leaked email from Lucke, the Free Voters leadership declined to join forces.
Founding The party was founded on 6 February 2013. On 14 April 2013, the AfD announced its presence to the wider public when it held its first convention in
Berlin, elected the party leadership, and adopted a party platform. Bernd Lucke, the entrepreneur
Frauke Petry and Konrad Adam were elected as speakers. AfD's federal board also chose Alexander Gauland, Roland Klaus, and Patricia Casale as its three deputy speakers. The party elected the treasurer Norbert Stenzel and the three assessors Irina Smirnova, Beatrix Diefenbach, and Wolf-Joachim Schünemann. The economist
Joachim Starbatty, along with , , , and , were elected to the party's scientific advisory board. Between 31 March and 12 May 2013 AfD founded affiliates in all 16
states of Germany in order to participate in the federal elections. On 15 June 2013 the
Young Alternative for Germany was founded in
Darmstadt as the AfD's youth organisation. During the British prime minister
David Cameron's visit to Germany in April 2013, the British
Conservative Party was reported to have contacted both AfD and the
Free Voters to discuss possible cooperation, supported by the
European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group of the European Parliament. In June 2013 Bernd Lucke gave a question and answer session organized by the Conservative Party-allied
Bruges Group think tank in
Portcullis House, London. In a detailed report in the conservative
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in April 2013, the paper's Berlin-based political correspondent Majid Sattar revealed that the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and CDU had conducted
opposition research to blunt the growth and attraction of AfD. Advocating the abolition of the euro, AfD took a more radical stance than the Free Voters. The
Pirate Party Germany opposed any coalition with AfD at their 2013 spring convention. The AfD's initial supporters were the same prominent economists, business leaders, and journalists who had supported the Electoral Alternative 2013, including former members of the
Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), who had previously challenged the constitutionality of the German government's eurozone policies at the
Federal Constitutional Court. AfD did not regard itself as a splinter party from the CDU, as its early membership also contained a former state leader from the
Free Democratic Party and members of the Federation of Independent Voters, a pressure group of independents and small business owners. AfD did not participate in the
2013 Bavaria state election held on 15 September. The party gained parliamentary representation for the first time in the state parliament of
Hesse, with the defection of Jochen Paulus from the
Free Democratic Party to AfD in early May 2013; he was not re-elected and left office in January 2014. In the
2013 Hesse state election held on 22 September, the same day as the 2013 federal election, AfD failed to gain representation with just 4% of the vote. File:Wahlplakat 2013 AfD 01.JPG|thumb|left|Former "Courage [to stand up] for the truth! The euro is dividing Europe!" tagline on election placard 2013 In early 2014, the
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled the proposed 3% vote hurdle for representation in the European elections unconstitutional, and the 2014 European Parliament election became the first run in Germany without a barrier for representation. AfD held a party conference on 25 January 2014 in
Aschaffenburg, northwest
Bavaria. The conference chose the slogan ("Courage [to stand up] for Germany") to replace the former slogan (, or more succinctly, "Telling it as it is"), The conference elected the top six candidates for the European elections on 26 January 2014 and met again the following weekend to choose the remaining euro candidates. Candidates from 7th–28th place on the party list were selected in Berlin on 1 February. Party chairman Bernd Lucke was elected as lead candidate. In February 2014, AfD officials said they had discussed alliances with the British anti-EU
UK Independence Party (UKIP), which Lucke and the federal board of AfD opposed, and also with the
European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, to which Britain's
Conservative Party belongs. In April 2014
Hans-Olaf Henkel, AfD's second candidate on the European election list, ruled out forming a group with UKIP. stating that he saw the Conservatives as the preferred partner in the European Parliament. In the 2014 European Parliament election on 25 May, AfD came in fifth place in Germany, with 7.1% of the national vote (2,065,162 votes), and seven
Members of the European parliament (MEPs). On 12 June 2014, it was announced that AfD had been accepted into the ECR group in the European Parliament. The official vote result was not released to the public, but figures of 29 votes for and 26 against were reported by the membership. winning 14 seats in the
Landtag of Saxony. On 14 September, AfD obtained 10.6% of the vote in the
2014 Thuringian and 12.2% in the
Brandenburg state election, winning 11 seats in both state parliaments. On 15 February 2015 AfD won 6.1% of the vote in the
Hamburg state election, gaining the mandate for eight seats in the
Hamburg Parliament, winning their first seats in a western German state. On 10 May 2015, AfD secured in the 5.5% of the vote in the
2015 Bremen state election gaining representation in their fifth state parliament on a 50% turnout.
Petry's leadership (2015–2017) After months of factional infighting and a cancelled party gathering in June 2015,
Frauke Petry was elected on 4 July 2015 as the
de facto principal speaker of the party with 60% of the member votes ahead of Bernd Lucke at a party congress in
Essen. Petry was a member of the national-conservative faction of AfD. Her leadership was widely seen as heralding a shift of the party to the right to focus more on issues such as immigration, Islam, and strengthening ties to
Russia, a shift which was claimed by Lucke as turning the party into a "
Pegida party". In the following week, five MEPs exited the party on 7 July, the only remaining MEPs being
Beatrix von Storch and
Marcus Pretzell, and Lucke announced on 8 July 2015 that he was resigning from AfD, citing the rise of xenophobic and pro-Russian sentiments in the party. At a meeting of members of the Wake-up call (Weckruf 2015) group on 19 July 2015, AfD founder Bernd Lucke and former AfD members announced they would form a new party, the
Alliance for Progress and Renewal, under the founding principles of AfD. The split off party was eventually renamed the
Liberal Conservative Reformers, but had little electoral success. In February 2016 AfD announced a cooperation pact with the
Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). On 8 March 2016, the bureau of the ECR group began motions to exclude AfD from their group due to its links with the far-right FPÖ, inviting the two remaining AfD MEPs to leave the group by 31 March, with a motion of exclusion to be tabled on 12 April if they refuse to leave voluntarily. While von Storch left the ECR group on 8 April to join the
Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group, Pretzell let himself be expelled on 12 April. With the
European migrant crisis remaining the dominant national issue, elections on 13 March were held in the three states of
Baden-Württemberg,
Rhineland-Palatinate, and
Saxony-Anhalt, and saw the AfD receiving double-digit percentages of the vote in all three states. In the
2016 Saxony-Anhalt state election, AfD reached second place in the Landtag, receiving 24.2% of the vote. In the
2016 Baden-Württemberg state election, AfD achieved third place, with 15.1% of the vote. In the
2016 Rhineland-Palatinate state election, AfD again reached third place, with 12.6% of the vote. In
Angela Merkel's home state of
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, her CDU was beaten into third place following a strong showing of AfD, who contested at state level for the first time, to claim the second-highest polling with 20.8% of the vote in the
2016 state election. AfD voter support in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania appears to have come from both left-wing and right-wing parties, with support for the
Social Democratic Party of Germany down 4.9%, CDU down 4.1%,
The Left down 5.2%,
Alliance '90/The Greens down 3.9%, and support for the
National Democratic Party of Germany (NDP) halved, dropping to 3.0%. Rising support for AfD meant that The Greens and the NDP failed to reach the 5% threshold to qualify for seats in the
Landtag of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and consequently lost their seats. In the
2016 Berlin state election, which AfD also contested for the first time, the party achieved a vote of 14.2%, making them the fifth largest party represented in the state assembly. Their vote seems to have come equally from the SPD and CDU, whose votes declined 6.7% and 5.7%, respectively. At the party congress held on 30 April to 1 May 2016, AfD adopted a policy platform based upon opposition to Islam, calling for the ban of Islamic symbols including
burqas,
minarets, and
adhan (call to prayer), using the slogan "Islam is not a part of Germany".
Meuthen's leadership (2017–2022) in April 2017 At the party conference in April 2017, Frauke Petry announced that she would not run as the party's main candidate for the 2017 federal election. This announcement grew out of internal power struggle as the party's support had fallen in polls from 15% in the summer of 2016 to 7% just before the conference.
Björn Höcke from the far-right wing of the party and Petry were attempting to push each other out of the party. Petry's decision was partly seen as a step to avoid a vote at the conference on the issue of her standing. The party chose Alexander Gauland, a stark conservative who worked as an editor and was a former member of the CDU, to lead the party in the elections. Gauland supported the retention of Höcke's party membership. Alice Weidel, who is perceived as more moderate and
neoliberal, was elected as his running mate. The party approved a platform that, according to
The Wall Street Journal, "urges Germany to close its borders to asylum applicants, end
sanctions on Russia and to leave the EU if Berlin fails to retrieve national sovereignty from Brussels, as well as to amend the country's constitution to allow people born to non-German parents to have their German citizenship revoked if they commit serious crimes." At a press conference held by AfD the day after the 2017 federal election, Frauke Petry said that she would participate in the Bundestag as an independent; she said she did this because extremist statements by some members made it impossible for AfD to function as a constructive opposition, and to make clear to voters that there is internal dissent in the AfD. She also said that she would be leaving the party at some future date. Petry formed the
Blue Party in September 2017. Four members of AfD in the
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania legislature, including Bernhard Wild, also left the party to form
Citizens for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, In 2018
André Poggenburg, AfD's regional leader of the eastern
Saxony-Anhalt state, resigned his post after making racist remarks concerning Turks and immigrants with dual citizenship. In 2019, Poggenburg started a new far-right party, (ADPM), which he left in August 2019 after his internal call to dissolve ADPM and to support AfD in the upcoming state elections of fall 2019 was denied. Ahead of the 2021 federal election, AfD campaigned with the slogan "Germany. But Normal" and took a position of opposing further lockdowns in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Having moved further right on economic issues and remaining strongly right on socio-cultural issues, despite attempts to normalize, AfD's manifesto for the federal election was deemed to be still too radical for the party to take part in government. In the federal election, AfD saw a dip in national vote share by getting 10.3% of the vote, compared to 12.6% in 2017; however, the party emerged as the largest in the states of
Saxony and
Thuringia, and saw a strong performance in
eastern Germany. The party's results drew a mixed analysis from AfD members and political commentators, the latter of whom attributed the slight decline to visible infighting, whereas AfD candidates such as Alice Weidel blamed media bias against the party. The political scientist
Kai Arzheimer commented that the result "wasn't any appreciable increase, but it wasn't a disaster for them." Arzheimer also posited that the result demonstrated that AfD had firmly established itself in German national politics but had not reached beyond its core support. AfD's top candidates
Tino Chrupalla and Weidel praised the result as "solid", while party spokesman
Jörg Meuthen stated that the party should reevaluate the result and aim on "sending strong signals towards the center" to win back new voters.
Chrupalla and Weidel (2022–present) AfD held their three seats in the
2022 Saarland state election. At the same time, they lost all their seats in the
2022 Schleswig-Holstein state election. In the
2022 Lower Saxony state election in October, AfD won 9 more seats compared to 2017 to a total of 18. In the
2023 Berlin repeat state election AfD recorded a small upswing by gaining 4 seats compared to the 2021 election. In the
2023 Bremen state election AfD did not participate and lost all their seats, as the Bremen electoral committee had barred AfD from the election due to internal divisions that had resulted in them submitting two lists of candidates. The
Citizens in Rage, another right-wing party, participated instead; they received 10 seats (after having only one seat in 2019) in Bremen's state parliament. On 25 June 2023, amidst rises in polls,
Thuringia's AfD won its first district election in
Sonneberg. In the
run-off election held on 2 July, the AfD candidate
Hannes Loth won against the
independent politician Nils Naumann, becoming AfD's first ever mayor. On 8 October state elections, AfD significantly increased its share in
Hesse where it became the second-biggest party (+9 seats) and in
Bavaria, where it became the third (+10 seats). Observers considered the increase of support for the AfD as not being limited to the local level.
Opinion polling for the 2025 German federal election conducted in early July 2023 showed that the AfD polled more than the SPD, achieving second place behind the
CDU/CSU alliance. The SPD co-leader said a ban should be considered if the AfD is categorized as a group of "proven Right-wing extremists" by the
Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Friedrich Merz, the CDU leader, warned that "banning parties has never actually solved political problems". Germans are evenly split on a ban, with 47 per cent in favour and 47 per cent against; the ban is more popular in the west and among liberal Greens. In December 2023 Tim Lochner of AfD was elected Mayor of
Pirna (Saxony). He became the first mayor of a city with more than 20,000 inhabitants to be a member of the party. In 2023, the AfD saw 86
violent attacks on AfD party representatives. This was more than on any other German party.
2023 meeting and subsequent protests In January 2024
Correctiv reported that members of AfD had
secretly met with figures from the German and Austrian far-right in November 2023, in which they allegedly discussed a "
remigration" plan for deporting immigrants, which could include naturalised German citizens. Those present included the
Identitarian activist
Martin Sellner. The AfD distanced itself from the meeting, saying it was not responsible for what was discussed and that its members had attended only in a personal capacity. Alice Weidel parted ways with
Roland Hartwig, an advisor who was present at the meeting. The plan was condemned by German politicians, including Chancellor
Olaf Scholz. The report sparked
protests against the AfD across Germany, with protestors calling for a ban of AfD. Subsequently, the AfD member
Maximilian Krah got involved in controversy, prompting AfD to be expelled from the
ID group, with
EKRE supporting expulsion of Krah, but opposing the removal of the entire AfD delegation, and the
FPÖ opposing the expulsion of AfD.
2024 On 9 June 2024 AfD won 16% of the vote in the European Parliament elections, second only to the
CDU/CSU and almost five percentage points more than in the 2019 election. AfD prevailed in all five former
East German states. One of the party's leaders,
Tino Chrupalla, hailed the results as "historic". However, AfD failed to join ID, or now named
Patriots for Europe. Instead, AfD formed the new
ESN group which was composed predominantly of AfD members, as well as some other
ethnonationalist parties across Europe.
State elections in the former East German states In the
2024 Thuringian state election, the AfD became the first far-right party in Germany since the
Nazi Party to win a plurality of seats in a state election. The AfD also performed strongly in
Brandenburg and
Saxony.
2025 On 23 February 2025 AfD won 20.8% of the vote in the German federal election, second to the
CDU/CSU. It gained 10.4 percentage points over the 2021 election result. The party won nearly a third of the votes in each of the East German states, the lowest being 32.5% in Brandenburg and the highest 38.5% in Thuringia, and won all but three constituency seats in the former East Germany (Potsdam, Erfurt and one of two seats in Leipzig). In the former West Germany, the party beat the SPD for second place by less than 0.5% of the vote and received more than 20% of the vote in two southwestern states:
Saarland (21.6%) and
Rhineland-Palatinate (20.1%). In April 2025, for the first time in German history, AfD was ahead of the CDU/CSU (Union) in some
opinion polls for the
next federal election, while other polls put it on par with the Union or in second place. Support for the CDU/CSU, an
alliance that won the election, fell from 29% to 24%, while AfD rose by three percentage points from 22% to 25%, partially becoming the most popular party in Germany. In May 2025 the
Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) classified AfD as a "confirmed right-wing extremist endeavor". In a 1,100-page classified and undisclosed report, BfV experts found that AfD is a "racist and
anti-Muslim organisation". The classification will allow German authorities to monitor AfD and possibly limit or halt
public funding for it. It may also inspire its opponents to attempt to get it banned. AfD leaders
Alice Weidel and
Tino Chrupalla said the decision was "clearly politically motivated" and was a "severe blow to German democracy". They argued that AfD is being discredited and
persecuted by the government. Chancellor
Olaf Scholz said that BfV provided a "very detailed justification" for its decision and that proceedings to ban the AfD must not be rushed. On 4 May 2025 a poll conducted by Insa Polling Institute which surveyed 1,001 people found that 48% of them favour banning AfD. The poll also showed that 61% of participants consider AfD a "right-wing extremist” party. On 5 May AfD sued the Federal Office for the Protection of Constitution, accusing it of violating the
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (the German
constitution) by trying to prosecute AfD for saying ideas which are considered
freedom of speech and legitimate criticism of German
immigration policies. A court in
Cologne will start reviewing the case once BfV confirms that it has been notified of the lawsuit.
Sieghard Knodel, a member of AfD in the
Bundestag, announced his resignation from the party on 6 May 2025. He wrote in an email: "In light of the classification of the party as confirmed right-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, I must protect my private and business environment". He said that he would continue to serve as a non-attached member of parliament. On May 8, the extremist classification of AfD was temporarily suspended by the
BfV pending an official
court judgement. The AfD's leaders said that the decision was a "first important step" that would help "counter the accusation of
right-wing extremism". The report by the BfV that led to the classification was later leaked to the public. For the
Ludwigshafen mayoral election in September 2025, the local election administration commission composed of members of other parties, decided that AfD candidate Joachim Paul would not appear on the ballot due to doubt about his support for
constitution, a move which was later upheld in court, despite Joachim Paul never having had his right to be a candidate in elections revoked by law or any court. In August, five direct and two reserve AfD candidates died within 14 days of each other ahead of local elections in
North Rhine-Westphalia. == Ideology and platform ==