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The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party has called for mass deportations of immigrants as the party begins planning for next month’s national elections.
In an impassioned speech to supporters in Riesa, a small town in eastern Germany’s eastern state of Saxony, Alice Weidel of the AfD, which is in second place in opinion polls with a record share of about 20 percent of the vote, said: He said Germany would see “repatriations”. Massive”.
Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for prime minister in the election, used the controversial term “immigration” to describe the policy.
The term was coined by Austrian right-wing ideologue Martin Sellner, who used “reimmigration” to refer to the forcible removal of immigrants, regardless of their citizenship status, who break the law or “refuse to integrate.” Critics say the idea is akin to ethnic cleansing.
“We have to be honest: If it’s called immigration, it’s called re-immigration,” Weidel said Saturday.
She was greeted with thunderous applause from party representatives who repeatedly chanted “Alice für Deutschland,” a play on the banned Nazi-era slogan “Alles für Deutschland,” meaning “all for Germany.”
Weidell, a former Goldman Sachs analyst, has positioned himself as the more presentable face of a party that includes ultra-radicals classified as right-wing extremists by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.
Earlier this week, Weidel, who co-appeared on “X” with Elon Musk, used his unprecedented public appearance to support the mainstream AfD, which is also pushing for normalization of relations with Russia and the removal of wind turbines. He claimed to have become a political force.
However, all of Germany’s other major parties have ruled out forming a coalition with Germany, so there is little chance of it coming to power in the next election.
Mr. Weidel’s acceptance of immigration was seen in some circles as a tribute to Björn Höcke, the radical right-wing standard-bearer who led the AfD to a historic first place in local elections in East Germany’s Thuringia state in September. .
“This is a concession to Björn Höcke,” said Kai Gottschalk, a member of the Bundestag from the party’s centrist wing. “Of course it’s words. I would put it another way – send them back – but that’s what the delegation wants.”
Weidell also used his speech to repeatedly call for restarting the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, restoring nuclear power and condemning gender research programs.
The party’s rally was met with large-scale protests. About 10,000 anti-AfD demonstrators gathered, and police sealed off Riesa, a town of 30,000 people, delaying the start of the conference for two hours.
