What the AfD Says (and Doesn’t Say) About the Holocaust, Jews, and Israel
Translated by Lianna Mark
On September 6, the AfD experienced a historic victory in Saxony-Anhalt’s state election, receiving 43.8 percent of the vote. One week later, in the local elections in Lower Saxony, the party more than tripled their showing, from 4.6 to 15.9 percent. A far-right populist party, the AfD has centered its political project on anti-migration sentiment, a position that has become increasingly mainstream as center-right parties have taken up similar talking points. Over the years, the AfD has consistently linked rising antisemitism to migration, allowing the party to position itself as a defender of Jewish life despite its political extremism.
This analysis by the journalist Joseph Croitoru is adapted from a talk given at Hijacking Memory, a conference held at Berlin’s House of World Cultures in June 2022. It was subsequently revised for a volume edited by Susan Neiman that was published by transcript Verlag in February of this year.
The AfD on German History
The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was founded as a right-wing liberal, Eurosceptic party in the lead up to the 2013 general election. Its stance on German history builds upon that of the far-right “Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands” (NPD). Popular with the East German right until the AfD took its place, the NPD promoted a historically revisionist agenda. For example, the NPD’s 2014 electoral platform in Saxony, where the party had held seats in the state parliament since 2004, argued that: “The National Socialist past has assumed almost mythical status in Germany, as is evident in Saxony’s high-school curricula. History lessons… focus almost exclusively on the study of the ‘Third Reich.’ The NPD believes it paramount to correct this imbalance…. Events of world-historical importance, such as the expulsion of Germans from Silesia, Pomerania, and East Prussia, must no longer be marginalized in school curricula.”
The AfD challenged the NPD in the 2014 state election in Saxony, with the following statement in its platform, under the heading “Improving and Rethinking History Education”: “Schools — and history classes in particular — should not only foster a deeper understanding of the historical development of our national identity, but encourage a positive relationship to it. We want to see a greater emphasis on the 19th century and on the Wars of Liberation. The foundations of our state were laid in 1813, 1848, and 1871.”
The AfD continued to beat this drum in the following years. Its 2016 platform in Saxony-Anhalt stated: “A one-sided focus on twelve unfortunate years of our history obscures centuries that gave rise to an unparalleled system of culture and statehood.”
Five years later, in the lead up to the 2021 general election, this demand was reformulated more vaguely, with no direct references to the Nazi period: “German history deserves to be honored in its entirety. Official memory culture should look beyond our history’s troughs and focus on its peaks as well.”
Of the four west-German states that held elections in 2022, only in Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein, and Lower Saxony did the AfD explicitly address the topic of German history. As in the previous year’s general election, the party made no reference to the Nazi era. For example, under the heading “Toward a Confident and Holistic Memory Culture,” the Saarland platform stated that “the AfD firmly opposes current German memory culture’s exclusive focus on the 20th century. We call instead for a broader historical scope, not only to acknowledge outdated ways of thinking and past injustices but also to celebrate positive aspects of our history and culture, both national and regional, as tenets of our identity.”
The AfD entered the Saarland Parliament with just 5.7 percent of the vote. During the next state election — in Schleswig-Holstein in May 2022 — the party remained conspicuously tight-lipped on the issue: “In cultivating traditions, practicing memory culture, and teaching history we should present the full scope of German history and not be limited to a politicized selection of topics.”
What has remained unchanged is the AfD’s call to focus on eras and aspects of German history worthy of celebration.
Having failed to secure any seats in Schleswig-Holstein, the AfD revised its messaging for the next state election — in Lower Saxony in October 2022 — limiting its celebration of German history almost exclusively to a regional context. Under the heading “Cultural Conservation in Customs and Monuments,” Section 13 of the party platform, on “Culture and Science,” stated that: “We view German history as a continuum. This continuity is visible in German traditions and in architecturally significant buildings and monuments, such as Frisian farmhouses and fishermen’s cottages, medieval castles, the facades of the Gründerzeit era, or industrial heritage buildings.” Though this regional focus came with a heavy-handed deployment of the term “Heimat” — e.g., “Heimat literature,” “Heimat museums” and “Heimat tradition” — the tone was significantly more restrained than in the 2021 general election. There, “Heimat” had been used in more historically charged combinations, such as “Heimatgefühl” (sense of home) and “Heimatliebe” (love of home). This newfound restraint may well have contributed to the AfD’s success in Lower Saxony, where the party was able to improve its result by more than two-thirds, from 6.2 to 11 percent.
As these examples illustrate, the AfD has traversed many phases in its stance on German history. The party has increasingly distanced itself from the NPD’s revisionism, which it had adopted in diluted form at its inception. What has remained unchanged is the AfD’s call to focus on eras and aspects of German history worthy of celebration. While the party was initially explicit in condemning what it saw as an undue focus on the Nazi era, it now refers to this period only obliquely — or not at all, as was most recently the case in Lower Saxony in 2022, where German history was described more vaguely as a “continuum.”
Controversial Statements by AfD Leaders
When two leading party members made significantly more provocative remarks about German history in 2017 and 2018, they faced strong pushback from within the party and ended up apologizing publicly. On January 17, 2017, one week before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Björn Höcke — a former teacher, head of the AfD in Thuringia, and representative of the AfD’s far-right “faction” — said that: “The bombing of Dresden and other German cities was aimed exclusively at robbing us of our collective identity… and, with the systematic re-education efforts that began after 1945, this almost succeeded. There was no such thing as a German victim, there were only German perpetrators. … We… are the only people in the world who have built a monument to shame at the heart of their capital. … Instead of acquainting our students… with [the great minds of German history], we present German history as miserable and ridiculous. … And these idiotic policies for coming to terms with the past still paralyze us today…. We need, more urgently than ever, a 180-degree turn in our memory culture.”
Facing an angry backlash, Höcke backtracked the following day. He posted a statement on Facebook pretending to have mentioned the Holocaust in his speech: “I described the Holocaust — that is, the genocide of the Jewish population perpetrated by Germans — as a disgrace to our people. And I said that we have erected a memorial in the heart of Berlin to commemorate this enduringly incomprehensible crime — that is, to commemorate the guilt and shame associated with it. What’s wrong with that? With my speech in Dresden, I intended to question how we, as Germans, look back on our history and how this can shape our sense of self in the 21st century. Our collective identity must, of course, reflect the immense guilt we carry. It is part of our history. But it is, after all, just that: one part of it.”
Calls to expel Höcke from the party followed. One month later, in response to mounting pressure, he issued another public apology: “Unfortunately, I made a hash of a crucial, a vitally important topic in a beer-tent speech…. That was a mistake and I apologize.” In May 2018, the party ultimately decided that Höcke could stay.
Just one month later, Alexander Gauland, former journalist and then co-leader of the AfD, sparked controversy with a political address, stating: “We have a glorious history that lasted longer than 12 years. … Yes, we acknowledge our responsibility for those 12 years. But, dear friends, Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird poo1 in a history spanning over 1,000 years. And the great figures of our history, from Charlemagne and Charles V to Bismarck, are the role models we should emulate. … Remember that it was a German Jew, Ernst Kantorowicz, who described the glory of the Staufer emperor. No, Islam does not belong here; our ancestors blocked its advance near Vienna in 1683. But German Jewry — from Ballin and Bleichröder to Rathenau and Kantorowicz — is part of a heroic German history that Hitler sought to destroy.”
This right-wing, populist agenda is shared by the “Jews in the AfD,” a party group founded in 2018 that, for example, posted on Facebook on May 27, 2022: “Muslims are the biggest perpetrators of antisemitism!”
Gauland’s remarks ignited a firestorm that he addressed just one week later. At the party congress in Bavaria, he apologized for his remark: “even though what I meant was clear in the context of my speech, the phrase I used was open to misinterpretation and thus politically misguided […] the ‘bird poo’ in my speech was worse than a crime — it was plain stupid.”
The AfD on the Holocaust
Toeing the party line, neither Gauland nor Höcke used the term “Holocaust” of their own accord — indeed, the AfD has steered clear of the term and of its synonyms from the outset. Höcke was barred from attending the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in the Thuringian State Parliament in the wake of his speech in Dresden. Alongside other party members, he was also denied access to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp by the memorial’s administrative team. There were a few similar cases, but these have remained exceptional. The AfD has protested vociferously against these exclusions and strived to establish its place in national memory culture with consensus-seeking statements and actions, particularly on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. At the same time, it has repeatedly accused “left-wing extremists” of hindering its participation, such as when the party’s memorial wreath was damaged in Saxony-Anhalt in January 2020. On Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2020, the AfD leadership responded to accusations of insincerity with even more explicit statements, such as “we honor the memory of those who were murdered by the Nazi regime.” At the same time, Alice Weidel, the party’s parliamentary leader in the Bundestag, dismissed these accusations as making political hay of Holocaust remembrance.
The AfD’s Relationship to Jews and Antisemitism
Since 2013, more than a dozen openly antisemitic remarks by AfD politicians have come to public attention and those responsible have been expelled from the party or pressured to resign. Similar statements by party members, on the other hand, seem to have gone unpunished. Without explicitly identifying him as Jewish, for example, AfD members have alleged billionaire George Soros’s participation in a sinister global conspiracy run by a “financial elite” — an accusation that draws, as has been observed, on antisemitic tropes. AfD politicians have also made use of the coded term “globalists,” previously employed by the far-right NPD.
Meanwhile, since 2014, the AfD — and particularly its “Patriotic Platform,” which at the time represented the far right of the party — has been raising concerns about antisemitism, with an exclusive focus, however, on its alleged rise among Muslim communities. Alongside sweeping accusations of antisemitism against the radical Left, this limited focus aligns with the party’s anti-Muslim and anti-leftist platform. This right-wing, populist agenda is shared by the “Jews in the AfD,” a party group founded in 2018 that, for example, posted on Facebook on May 27, 2022: “Muslims are the biggest perpetrators of antisemitism!”
In response to these and similar claims, the AfD has faced criticism for instrumentalizing accusations of antisemitism and downplaying its prevalence among right-wing extremists. Accordingly, in a section titled “Islam” of its 2021 general election platform, the party added a reference to right-wing (if not left-wing) extremisms, writing that: “Jewish life in Germany is threatened not only by right-wing extremists but also, increasingly, by Muslims hostile to Jews and Israel.”
The AfD, Israel, and the BDS Movement
The AfD displays a similarly self-serving attitude toward Israel. Vehement criticism of Israel’s human rights policies emerged within the party as recently as 2018, echoing statements made previously by the far-right NPD and even suggesting that Germany reserve the right to impose boycotts and sanctions on Israel, modeled on the BDS movement. The leading voice in this choir was party member Wolfgang Gedeon, who on several occasions displayed openly antisemitic behavior and, in the face of persistent protests, was expelled from the party in March 2020.
The AfD has long seen itself not only as an ally to the Jewish community, but also as the “Party of Friends of Israel.” To prove this, it backed the strong opposition to the BDS movement launched by the CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP and Alliance 90/The Greens in 2018, and even proceeded to take it further. The decisive moment in this process was likely a meeting on October 12, 2018, between Jürgen Braun, a former TV journalist and then parliamentary secretary for the AfD, and Felix Klein, the Federal Government Antisemitism Commissioner. Published by Jürgen Braun shortly after the meeting alongside a photo of the two men shaking hands, the press release stated: “Klein suggested that the AfD parliamentary group publicly condemn the ‘Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions’ (BDS) campaign, which targets Israel and is covertly antisemitic. Braun responded: ‘We’d be happy to take up a stronger condemnation of the BDS movement. It will again become clear that the AfD is the only party in parliament that truly supports the State of Israel.’”
The AfD is eager to raise the alarm on antisemitism but stays silent when this manifests within its own ranks.
The rest of the Bundestag — it seems — was aware the AfD had something up its sleeve. On April 9, 2019, reportedly in collaboration with pro-Israel organizations, the FDP parliamentary group adopted a draft resolution, titled “No Place for Antisemitism: Opposing the BDS Movement,” and announced its intention to submit it with the support of other parliamentary parties. But the AfD beat them to it. As early as April 29, it submitted its own motion, demanding the defunding of individuals or events associated with BDS and a nationwide ban on the movement. On May 15, after a two-week hiatus, Jürgen Braun announced that the AfD’s motion would be debated “later in the week” in a plenary session. That same day, not only Die Linke but also the FDP, alongside the CDU/CSU, SPD, and Alliance 90/The Greens, submitted their own motion. Two days later, on May 17, 2019, all three motions were debated and the one titled “Against the BDS Movement — Combating Antisemitism,” submitted by the FDP, SPD, and Alliance 90/The Greens, was ultimately adopted. While this version of the resolution does not include the blanket ban on BDS-related activities that the AfD had demanded, it broadly condemns the movement as antisemitic and calls on the German state to effectively boycott it — a resolution that remains controversial and carries far-reaching consequences to this day.
Conclusion
AfD politicians would likely avoid discussing the Holocaust, if the need to deflect any suspicion of far-right extremism didn’t force them to address it. Through their ambivalent statements, however, they have long communicated what they really think about the Holocaust to the historical revisionists among their voter base. At the same time, the party presents itself as an ally of the Jewish community — though this seems to apply only to Jews amenable to its anti-Muslim and anti-leftist agenda. Among the German Jews Alexander Gauland praised in his controversial 2018 speech for their contribution to Germany’s “heroic history,” one is unlikely to find any leftists or non-Zionists. The AfD is eager to raise the alarm on antisemitism but stays silent when this manifests within its own ranks. That said, experience to date shows that overt antisemitism is not tolerated in the party. The AfD also presents as extremely pro-Israel — as long as Israel is understood as a Jewish ethnostate. The party sees Israel as an ally in the fight against Islam’s alleged quest for global dominance. On the rare occasions when AfD politicians mention Palestinians, they do so exclusively in negative terms.2
With its opportunistic “Israel-patriotism,” its philosemitism, and its anti-antisemitism, the AfD has been pressuring other German parties to adopt an even stronger stance on these issues. On March 30, 2022, for example, at approximately 2:45 p.m., Beatrix von Storch criticized a statement by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s spokesperson regarding terrorist attacks in Israel, saying: “Baerbock should call Islamist terror against Israel by its name.” Just one hour later, Baerbock called out “Islamist terrorists” in a tweet, insisting: “Our friendship is unwavering — our full solidarity lies with Israel.”
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- Translator’s note: Vogelschiss,” literally “bird poo,” is a figure of speech in German, indicating something comparatively small and insignificant. The speech was translated literally by international media (see, e.g., the BBC headline, “German anger over AfD chief’s ‘Nazi era just bird poo’ remark”). [↩]
- As can be verified by searching for terms such as “Palestinians,” “Palestine,” or “Palestinian” on the AfD website. [↩]