Young alternative for Germany

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Chairperson
Basic data
Establishment date	June 2013
Place of foundation	Darmstadt
Chairman	Damian Lohr
Deputy	Dominic Fiedler Tomasz Froelich Jan Hornuf Mary Khan
Treasurer	Felix Koschkar
Alignment:	Right-wing populism to right-wing extremism National conservatism Nationalism EU skepticism Völkisch nationalism Anti-feminism
Number of members	approx. 1655 (as of January 2019)
Minimum age	14 years
structure	15 regional associations
Website	jungealternative.com

The Young Alternative for Germany (short name: JA ) is the right-wing populist , in parts right-wing extremist youth organization of the Alternative for Germany party . According to its own information, it has 1655 members (as of January 2019) and is led by Federal Chairman Damian Lohr . The JA was founded in 2013 and recognized on November 28, 2015 by a federal party conference of the AfD. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the organization on January 15, 2019 as a "suspected case" and attests her a "migration and in particular anti-Islamic attitude".

history

Foundation and recognition by the mother party

The Junge Alternative (JA) was founded in June 2013 at its first federal congress in Darmstadt . In June 2014, the state party congress of the AfD state association in North Rhine-Westphalia recognized the JA delegates for the first time. As of October 2014, the regional associations of Hamburg and Saarland also recognized the JA as a youth organization. In the course of 2015 there were a total of ten regional associations. At the 4th party conference in November 2015 in Hanover, the JA was finally recognized as a youth organization of the federal association.

Direction dispute 2015

Even before and at the 3rd Federal Young Alternative Congress in Bottrop (January 2015), an open dispute over the direction between the liberal-conservative camp and representatives of the national-conservative wing of the organization was fought.

At the federal congress in Bottrop, the liberal-conservative candidate Philipp Meyer prevailed against Markus Frohnmaier. After an internal dispute, Meyer was relieved of his position in May, five months after his election as federal chairman. Meyer, who was considered a Lucke supporter according to the time, was u. a. accused of having supported the impeachment proceedings against the Thuringian state chairman Björn Höcke and the establishment of the Weckruf 2015 association , a platform of liberal AfD members, with his signature.

In June 2015, 40 members resigned from the Junge Alternative. These included two former federal chairmen. According to his own account, the first federal chairman Torsten Heinrich had already declared his resignation in March 2014.

Breakaway young reformers

Already in the run-up to the Essen party conference of the AfD there was a split within the youth organization. On June 28, 2015, the Junge Reformer was founded as a youth organization of what was then ALFA .

Federal Congresses

The Federal Congress of Junge Alternative is the highest body of the organization and can be held as a general assembly or an assembly of delegates.

Overview

No.	date	place	Events
1.	06/15/2013	Darmstadt, Hesse	Foundation and election of the board
2.	01/02/02/2014	Fulda, Hesse	New election of the board, program
3.	January 12/13, 2015	Bottrop, North Rhine-Westphalia	New election of the board, amendments to the statutes, Program, speeches by Bernd Kölmel , Bernd Lucke, Marcus Pretzell , directional dispute
4th	May 30/31, 2015	Okarben, Hesse	New election of the board With Tritschler and Frohnmaier, two YES representatives who are considered " opponents of luck " were elected as the new federal chairmen. Frohnmaier was a first signatory of the " Erfurt Resolution ", the position paper of the right wing national wing of the AfD.
5.	07/16/2016	Bingen, Rhineland-Palatinate	Frohnmaier and Tritschler were re-elected at the federal congress in July 2016. The Young Alternative also decided to be incompatible with the Identitarian Movement .
6th	February 17/18, 2018	Büdingen, Hesse	Among other things, new election of the board. The federal congress in February 2018 elected Damian Lohr as the new federal chairman of the Junge Alternative.
7th	02/03/06/2018	Seebach, Thuringia	Program
8th.	04/11/2018	Barsinghausen, Lower Saxony	Dissolution of the Lower Saxony regional association
9.	16./17.02.2019	Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt	New election of the board, amendments to the statutes, program

Members

→ Category: Member of the Junge Alternative für Deutschland

You can become a member from 14 to 36 years of age, although functionaries beyond the age limit only leave the JA at the end of their term of office. Simultaneous membership in the AfD is not required. In return, members of the AfD who are younger than 36 years of age are not automatically members of the Junge Alternative.

The Junge Alternative had over 1000 members in January 2016, of which around 90 percent were also members of the Alternative für Deutschland. In June 2018, the JA had around 1,800 members, according to its own information, 70 percent of them were also in the AfD. According to the social scientist Alexander Häusler , the Junge Alternative will recruit its followers by 2015 from the fraternity milieu and representatives of the New Right .

Political positions

For Häusler, the JA advocates a right-wing populist direction and acts as a “bridgehead” for the party to the New Right . Like other youth organizations, she tries to sharpen the position of the mother party. According to the social scientist David Bebnowski ( Göttingen Institute for Democracy Research ), the youth organization presents itself as an " anti-feminist force". Contrary to the decision made at the 2016 Federal Congress, there is also repeated cooperation with the right-wing extremist identity movement at the local level .

According to Anna-Lena Herkenhoff, members of the Junge Alternative “repeatedly attract attention through public statements that are extremely compatible with extremely right-wing discourses.” The sociologist cites statements by Markus Frohnmaier and Robert Wasiliew, which would exemplarily show how the “ the JA serves a common right-wing, racist discourse "and would follow a" public strategy procedure typical of the extreme right ". For Martin Langebach, however, it is still a “research desideratum ” whether the Junge Alternative “as a general association has affinities to right-wing populist or extreme right-wing positions ”.

According to the opinion of… “the Junge Alternative campaigns“ more aggressively than the parent party ”for contacts with other right-wing populist parties in Europe.” For example, in 2014 the JA organized an internally controversial event with Nigel Farage , the party leader of the British party UKIP . In addition, Frohnmaier and Tritschler had sought direct contact to the FPÖ "[f] earlier than the leading functionaries of their mother party [...] and were now in contact with the youth organizations of the SVP , the True Finns and United Russia .

In the summer of 2014, JA advertised vigilante justice as “the new police” in a campaign on Facebook .

In May 2019, David Eckert, the chairman of JA Berlin, criticized the parent party's climate policy: The AfD should "refrain from making the difficult-to-understand statement that humans do not influence the climate". As a result, several members of the state board resigned and made the body incapable of working.

Cooperations and networking

The Junge Alternative für Deutschland partially cooperates with other right-wing groups that are not bound by party politics. Formal cooperation between the organization is rather rare. The sociologist Anna Lena Herkenhoff pointed out, however, that there is “a lot of personal overlap with right-wing fraternities and the Identitarian Movement.” A number of JA activists are also members of new right or right-wing extremist organizations, others are loosely associated with such groups. In 2016, the Junge Alternative made a formal incompatibility decision on the Identitarian Movement. Observers point out, however, that the YES are formally demarcated because the IB is monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, but not due to incompatibilities in terms of content.

Jörg Sobolewski, former board member of Junge Alternative Berlin and deputy spokesman in the federal association until 2018, is a member of the Berlin fraternity Gothia and was spokesman for the German fraternity in 2016 . Today he works for the AfD member of the Bundestag Stephan Protschka from Bavaria.

There are also approaches for cooperation in the middle-class camp. The JA-Baden-Württemberg under its state chairman Markus Frohnmaier met in 2016 with representatives of the Junge Union in Baden-Württemberg to sound out similarities and to think about cooperation after the state elections in 2016 .

Evaluation by constitutional protection authorities

The Young Alternative for Germany is classified and monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the authorities for the protection of the Constitution in the states of Bremen, Lower Saxony, Baden-Württemberg, Berlin and Hesse as a so-called “suspected case” of extremist efforts. The authorities understand this as groups that are not clearly extremist, but for whom there are sufficiently weighty “ factual indications ” for such a suspicion. The intermediate stage of the suspected case does not exist in Bavaria, so that the JA is observed there as a proven extremist endeavor.

First of all, the internal departments of Bremen and Lower Saxony announced at the same time on September 3, 2018 that they would have the local JA regional associations monitored by their constitutional protection authorities. The Bremen Senator for the Interior Ulrich Mäurer (SPD) justified this with a proximity to the already observed " Identitarian Movement " as well as racist contributions in the social media . His Lower Saxony counterpart Boris Pistorius (SPD) also gave the reason for “ideological and personal overlaps” with the “Identitarian Movement” as well as a “repressive, authoritarian and anti-pluralist objective that is directed against the free democratic basic order”. The JA itself then dissolved the Lower Saxony state association on November 4, 2018 at a federal congress in Barsinghausen .

On November 15, 2018 it became public that the state association of Baden-Württemberg had also been monitored by the local protection of the constitution for a few days. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution followed on January 15, 2019, when it announced that the federal association had classified it as a test case. The Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution declared the YES to be an object of observation on January 22, 2019, the Berlin authority did this, as did the Hessian office in March 2019.

In January 2020, the AfD filed a lawsuit with the Cologne Administrative Court against the observation of its youth organization and the " wing " by the BfV.

Federal Chairperson

• 2013–2014: Torsten Heinrich, resigned
• 2014–2015: Philipp Ritz, resigned
• 2015: Philipp Meyer, resigned
• 2015–2018: Sven Tritschler (left when reaching the age limit) and Markus Frohnmaier (left)
• since 2018: Damian Lohr

Controversy

The deputy federal chairman Benjamin Nolte , who was elected at the 2nd federal congress in Fulda in February 2014, resigned a little later (at the end of March 2014) after it became known that he was an old man in the Danubia Munich fraternity , whose activities have been since 2001 is observed by the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution .

A young alternative group in Saxony-Anhalt shared pictures with the signature “Höckejugend” on social media. The name, which is apparently based on the Hitler Youth , was removed a little later. According to the deputy JA federal chairman, this designation was an “ironic exaggeration”.

Regional associations

	Regional association	founding	Chairperson or state spokesperson	Members
	Baden-Württemberg	2014	Jochen Lobstedt
	Bavaria	2014	Sven Kachelmann
	Berlin	2014	Vadim Derksen
	Brandenburg	2014	Dennis Hohloch
	Bremen	2016	Marvin Mergard
	Hamburg	2014	Tomasz Froelich
	Hesse	2014	Jens Mierdel and Michael Werl
	Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania	2015	Robert Schnell
	Lower Saxony	The state association was dissolved by the federal organization at the federal congress on November 4, 2018 with a majority decision after it was declared as the first state association of the young alternative to the observation case by the Lower Saxony constitutional protection in September 2018 Alternative was discontinued and later excluded.
	North Rhine-Westphalia	2014	Carlo Clemens
	Rhineland-Palatinate	2013	Alexander Jungbluth
	Saarland	2015	Moritz Guth
	Saxony	2013	Rolf Weigand
	Saxony-Anhalt	2015	Jan Wenzel Schmidt
	Schleswig-Holstein	2014	vacant
	Thuringia	2014	Maximilian Maul

literature

• H. Kleinert: AfD and new rights. In: The AfD and its members. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. ISBN 978-3-658-21715-0 , doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-658-21716-7_5 .
• Anna-Lena Herkenhoff: Right offspring for the AfD - the young alternative (JA) . In: Alexander Häusler (ed.): The alternative for Germany. Program, development and political positioning . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10638-6 , pp. 201-217, doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-658-10638-6_14 .
• Vincent Knopp: Provocation and Pragmatism. How the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD youth deal with socio-political conflict situations. Working Paper Series of the IKG. Vol 08. Bielefeld: IKG; 2016.

Web links

• Young Alternative website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Julia Klaus: Dropouts want to found new AfD youth. In: time online. January 30, 2019, accessed January 30, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Junge Alternative dissolves the regional association . In: www.t-online.de . ( t-online.de [accessed on November 8, 2018]).
3. ↑ Lenz Jacobsen: The two faces of the AfD. In: time online . November 29, 2015, accessed January 30, 2016 . 
4. ↑ Specialist information on sub-organizations of the party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD). Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, accessed on April 1, 2019 . 
5. ^ ^{A b c} Anna-Lena Herkenhoff: Right offspring for the AfD - the young alternative (JA) . In: Alexander Häusler (ed.): The alternative for Germany. Program, development and political positioning . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10638-6 , pp. 201–217, here: p. 202.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Alexander Häusler , Rainer Roeser: The "Alternative for Germany" - an answer to the right-wing populist gap? In: Stephan Braun , Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster (eds.): Strategies of the extreme right: Backgrounds - Analyzes - Answers. 2nd updated and expanded edition, Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-01983-9 , p. 119.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Christoph Asche: AfD youth organization Junge Alternative: "Almost blatantly right-wing radical" . Spiegel Online . October 17, 2014. Retrieved November 29, 2015.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Alexander Häusler , Rainer Roeser: Between criticism of the euro and right-wing populism. Features of the shift to the right in the AfD . In: Andreas Zick , Beate Küpper : Anger, contempt, devaluation. Right-wing populism in Germany . Edited for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation by Ralf Melzer and Dietmar Molthagen , Dietz, Bonn 2015, ISBN 978-3-8012-0478-5 , pp. 124–145, here: p. 133.
9. ↑ Sabine am Orde: Until there is hardly a refugee left. In: taz . November 28, 2015, accessed November 29, 2015 . 
10. ↑ [1] Article from December 12, 2014. Website of the right-wing conservative weekly newspaper "Junge Freiheit". Retrieved November 26, 2018.
11. ↑ [2] Website of the weekly newspaper "DIE ZEIT". Article dated May 23, 2015. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
12. ↑ [3] Article from June 2, 2015. Website of the right-wing conservative weekly newspaper "Junge Freiheit". Retrieved November 26, 2018.
13. ↑ Torsten Heinrich: AfD: Party of crazy. In: Huffington Post Germany . October 30, 2014, archived from the original on November 29, 2018 ; accessed on July 18, 2019 (blog). 
14. ↑ ^{a b c} Alexander Häusler , Rainer Roeser: Between criticism of the euro and right-wing populism. Features of the shift to the right in the AfD . In: Andreas Zick , Beate Küpper : Anger, contempt, devaluation. Right-wing populism in Germany . Edited for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation by Ralf Melzer and Dietmar Molthagen, Dietz, Bonn 2015, ISBN 978-3-8012-0478-5 , pp. 124–145, here: p. 134.
15. ^ The "Erfurt Resolution" - wording and first signatory. In: The wing. Retrieved April 8, 2016 . 
16. ^ Federal congress of the "Young Alternative" in Bingen: Petry calls on AfD youth to unity. In: swr.de. Retrieved July 18, 2016 . 
17. ↑ Robin Classen: AfD: Damian Lohr elected as the new federal chairman of the Junge Alternative . In: HESSEN DEPESCHE | News from politics, economy, culture and media from and for Hessen! ( hessen-depesche.de [accessed on March 6, 2018]).
18. ↑ There has been a mass exodus among AfD youth in recent months. In: welt.de. February 17, 2019, accessed October 8, 2019 . 
19. ↑ Federal statutes of the Junge Alternative. (No longer available online.) In: Junge Alternative - website of the organization. Junge Alternative, February 18, 2018, formerly in the original ; accessed on December 5, 2018 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
20. ↑ AfD leadership is tackling youth organizations . In: time online. June 16, 2018, accessed June 16, 2018 . 
21. ↑ Marlis Schaum: More radical than the AfD (conversation with Alexander Häusler) In: dradiowissen.de , January 30, 2015.
22. ^ David Bebnowski: The alternative for Germany. Rise and social representation of a right-wing populist party . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-08285-7 , p. 10.
23. ^ Felix Krebs: "Identitarian Movement": Military sport with fraternities . In: The time . February 6, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed March 2, 2017]).
24. ↑ Young alternative: AfD MP confirms cooperation with the Identitarian Movement . In: The time . January 30, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed March 2, 2017]).
25. ↑ Anna-Lena Herkenhoff: Right offspring for the AfD - the young alternative (JA) . In: Alexander Häusler (ed.): The alternative for Germany. Program, development and political positioning . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10638-6 , pp. 201–217, here: pp. 203f.
26. ↑ Martin Langebach: Right-wing extremism and youth . In: Fabian Virchow, Martin Langebach, Alexander Häusler (eds.): Handbuch right-wing extremism, VS Verlag 2016, pp. 375–440.
27. ↑ Alexander Häusler, Rainer Roeser, Lisa Scholten: Program, topic setting and political practice of the party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD). A study commissioned by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. 2016, p. 134, PDF
28. ↑ n-tv NEWS: AfD youth mutinies against climate deniers . Retrieved June 23, 2019 . 
29. ↑ Ulrich Kraetzer: AfD in Berlin: Young generation gets into a leadership crisis. May 31, 2019, accessed July 1, 2019 . 
30. ↑ ^{a b c} Hannah Bley: Young Alternative in the Bundestag: Next Generation AfD . In: The daily newspaper: taz . June 1, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed September 4, 2018]).
31. ↑ Young alternative: The would-be rebels . ( handelsblatt.com [accessed September 4, 2018]).
32. ↑ Glossary of the constitution protection authorities. Bremen State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, accessed on April 1, 2019 . 
33. ↑ Bremen's protection of the constitution should check AfD - dissolution of the JA associations required. Weser-Kurier, September 3, 2018, accessed on September 3, 2018 . 
34. ↑ AFD youth organization in Bremen, the "Young Alternatives", have been the object of observation by the Bremen Office for the Protection of the Constitution since last week. Press office of the Bremen Senate, September 3, 2018, accessed on September 3, 2018 . 
35. ↑ The Office for the Protection of the Constitution monitors Lower Saxony's AfD youngsters “Young Alternative”. Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, September 3, 2018, accessed on September 3, 2018 . 
36. ^ Pistorius: Seehofer should give up "restraint" towards the AfD. Der Tagesspiegel, September 3, 2018, accessed on September 3, 2018 . 
37. ↑ Junge Alternative dissolves the Lower Saxony regional association. Der Tagesspiegel, November 4, 2018, accessed on November 5, 2018 . 
38. ↑ Verfassungsschutz observes AfD youth organization in the country. Stuttgarter Nachrichten, November 15, 2018, accessed on November 15, 2018 . 
39. ↑ The Protection of the Constitution classifies AfD as a "test case". Der Tagesspiegel, January 16, 2019, accessed on February 19, 2019 . 
40. ↑ The Office for the Protection of the Constitution observes Young Alternative and "Wing". Die Welt , January 23, 2019, accessed January 30, 2019 . 
41. ↑ Berlin's protection of the constitution takes on the AfD. Der Tagesspiegel, March 13, 2019, accessed on April 1, 2019 . 
42. ↑ Hessian protection of the constitution observes "Young Alternative". Frankfurter Rundschau, April 1, 2019, accessed on April 1, 2019 . 
43. ↑ Sabine am Orde: AfD complains against observation. taz, January 13, 2020, accessed on January 13, 2020 . 
44. ↑ jungefreiheit.de: AfD moves away from party youth . Retrieved February 11, 2019 . 
45. ↑ WORLD: Outrage over the caption # Höckejugend at the AfD . In: THE WORLD . January 30, 2020 ( welt.de [accessed January 31, 2020]).
46. ^ National associations of the Junge Alternative. Junge Alternative, January 5, 2020, accessed January 5, 2020 . 
47. ↑ Junge Alternative Baden-Württemberg elects new state board. In: Junge Alternative Baden-Württemberg, Facebook. March 1, 2020, accessed April 10, 2020 . 
48. ↑ Junge Alternative Bayern elects new state board. In: Young Alternative Bavaria. November 20, 2017. Retrieved January 16, 2019 . 
49. ↑ Junge Alternative dissolves the Lower Saxony regional association. In: tagesspiegel.de. November 4, 2018, accessed November 4, 2018 . 
50. ↑ Junge Alternative dissolves the Lower Saxony regional association. November 4, 2018, accessed February 1, 2020 . 
51. ↑ Board of Directors | YES NRW. Retrieved December 13, 2017 . 
52. ↑ Young Alternative Saxony. January 19, 2019, accessed January 22, 2019 . 
53. ↑ Young alternative SH. August 29, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2019 . 
54. ↑ Young Alternative TH. Retrieved July 6, 2020 .