German govt says AfD’s new youth wing maintains extremist links

The new youth wing of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has clear “continuity” with its defunct predecessor, which was classified as right-wing extremist, the German Interior Ministry says.

The AfD last March disbanded its previous youth organization, the Young Alternative (JA), and in November founded its successor body, called Generation Germany (GD).

Speeches at the GD founding conference reflected hostility against the “free democratic order” and a racial and ethnocentric “understanding of the nation,” the ministry says in a reply to an inquiry from a Greens party MP obtained by AFP.

“There are known links between members of Generation Germany and other extremist organizations,” the ministry says in the response.

The BfV domestic intelligence agency had classified the JA as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization in 2023.

The replacement group, Generation Germany, claims to have over 2,100 members.

The ministry declines to provide further details about the alleged extremist links, citing the need to protect potential and ongoing investigations.

Marlene Schoenberger, the Greens MP who filed the parliamentary inquiry, calls for proceedings to ban the AfD’s new youth wing as well as potentially the entire political party itself.

The AfD is currently the second-largest party in Germany’s lower house of parliament, having won more than 20 percent of the vote in last February’s national elections.