AfD faction: How radical do you want to be?

Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla would rather not commit themselves to how to deal with these people. On the Monday morning after the election, the AfD party and parliamentary group leaders sat in the federal press conference in Berlin, in good spirits and strengthened by an election that took the party over the 20 percent threshold. But even now, when they could set the direction, they do not want to explain how they will deal with newly elected representatives who even party friends consider to be too extreme or too burdened. "We are of course not anticipating the parliamentary group's decision," says Weidel.

The AfD has almost doubled the number of its seats compared to the 2021 federal election to 152, including several MPs who must be described as problem cases even within the AfD, most notably Maximilian Krah and Matthias Helferich. The EU MP Krah has attracted attention through a series of affairs, through his proximity to Putin friends and the regime in China. Last April, the Federal Prosecutor General had one of his assistants arrested in the EU MP's office on suspicion of spying for China. Krah also appeared on the Internet portal "Voice of Europe", which spread pro-Russian propaganda and is suspected of having been part of a network that is said to have distributed money from Russia to EU MPs. Krah himself is not being investigated and he denies any involvement.

Members of the AfD leadership also describe Krah as an egocentric who is not a team player. As the EU's top candidate, he gave an interview to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica - against the agreements with the AfD leadership, so the accusation goes - in which he defended members of the SS troops during the Nazi era from a blanket condemnation, saying that "not all of them were criminals". The AfD leadership then urged him to withdraw from the European election campaign, and he was not accepted into the AfD group in the EU Parliament.

This could now also happen to Krah in the Bundestag faction. He himself believes that he will be accepted, as he told the SZ before the election. Krah can also argue with his popularity among AfD supporters; he won his Saxon constituency directly with a whopping 44.2 percent. According to a faction spokesman, a majority of faction members is enough to deny a member of parliament admission to the faction.

The same scenario could happen to Matthias Helferich. Years ago, the representative from Dortmund described himself in private chats as "the friendly face of the NS", i.e. National Socialism, and also spoke of himself as a "democratic Freisler". Roland Freisler had imposed numerous death sentences as President of the People's Court during the Nazi era. Helferich later tried to downplay his statements as irony, but he remained a non-affiliated representative during this election period. The AfD NRW is currently conducting expulsion proceedings against Helferich, who is said to have made racist comments, including by sharing the statement "out with the animals" on social media. The state party conference nevertheless elected him to sixth place on the list for the federal election, which paved the way for him to return to parliament.

The AfD faction also has a notable new addition from Thuringia. The party and faction leader there, Björn Höcke, stood next to Weidel and Chrupalla in Berlin on election night, because - as he wants it to be understood - this is also his victory. "In Thuringia, we were pioneers of this success story from the very beginning, and so the result from the heart of our republic must also be understood as a prophecy," he wrote on Telegram on Sunday evening. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies Höcke's regional association as definitely right-wing extremist.

Höcke had long considered running for a seat in the Bundestag himself, but then did not dare to take the decisive step. Instead, three of his close confidants are now entering the Bundestag: Stefan Möller, his party co-leader in Thuringia, Torben Braga, previously parliamentary manager of the AfD parliamentary group in Erfurt, and Höcke's office manager Robert Teske.

The 34-year-old Teske won the direct mandate in the Suhl-Schmalkalden-Meiningen-Hildburghausen-Sonneberg constituency, proving that the AfD does not necessarily lose its magic once it has taken on responsibility, because in Sonneberg the AfD has its first and so far only district administrator. On Sunday evening, Teske spoke of a grandiose sign and promised his voters: "You will hear from me." Teske may appear moderate in his demeanor, but his positions are no less radical than Höcke.

The same applies to Braga, who won the direct mandate in the Altenburger Land II constituency. Last September, for example, Braga orchestrated the constituent session of the Thuringian state parliament, at which the AfD's oldest member prevented a change to the rules of procedure for hours and was only stopped by the Constitutional Court.

Möller, after all, has been Höcke's right-hand man in Thuringia so far; without him, the parliamentary group would probably have collapsed long ago. The 49-year-old's toughest opponent in the Wartburgkreis/Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis constituency came from the AfD, of all places. Klaus Stöber won the direct mandate there for the AfD in 2021. In the last state election campaign, Stöber had criticized Höcke and accused him of a tendency towards egocentrism. The result was a party exclusion procedure against Stöber and Möller's candidacy in this constituency.