The Alternative for Germany (AfD) formed on Saturday the new youth wing of the far-right party, called Generation Germany, at a time accompanied by protests with thousands of participants.
The city of Giessen, near Frankfurt, hosted the congress for the formation of the AfD youth wing, in a tense environment, marked by a strong police presence and demonstrations that left some violent images.
According to the Efe agency, which cites police sources in a first assessment, several people were detained and ten officers were injured in clashes with protesters.
The protests, which included attempts to block road traffic in the city, forced the AfD to start the congress two and a quarter hours late.
These protest actions did not prevent the founding of new AfD youth organization – following the dissolution of its predecessor, Young Alternative – and the election of the new president, Jean-Pascal Hohm, a 28-year-old AfD regional deputy from Brandenburg, who was elected leader of the new organization with 90.43% of the delegates’ votes.
Despite the delay in the start of the congress, the delegates took all the decisions on Saturday, for which two days had initially been planned, which is why the organization dispensed with the second day, AfD sources told Efe.
In his presentation speech, before being elected leader of the far-right party’s youth groups, Hohm defended the AfD, accused by the current government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz of being a party that defends Russia’s interests in Germany.
“They may have different positions, but I want to be clear: neither Alice Weidel, nor Tino Chrupalla, nor anyone else is a slave of Russia or any other country,” he stated.
“We are German patriots and the first thing we ask is what are the interests of Germany and our citizens”, he added, to the applause of those present, which included Weidel and Chrupalla of the AfD.
In interventions, Weidel and Chrupalla alluded to the protest demonstrations against the founding of the new German youth organization.
“There is something wrong in this country and that is why it is important to found Generation Germany, the good generation, here and today”, Chrupalla said.
Weidel defended that the new youth organization sees the light of day so that the party’s current young people can become the future generation of political formation.
The co-leader of the AfD also reported the attack on Julian Schmidt, a 35-year-old deputy, when he was heading to the hall in Giessen where the event took place.
The online edition of the weekly Focus published parts of a video in which Schmidt, 35, deputy for the Marburg constituency (west), was allegedly confronted by a group of people with their faces covered.
This was one of the violent images of a a day marked by anti-AfD demonstrations, most of them without incident.
The largest of these demonstrations, in which the federation of German trade unions (DGB) participated, brought together 20,000 people, according to the newspaper Bild.
In the first assessment, the police counted a total of 25,000 to 30,000 people on the streets of Giessen.
These protests, University of Konstanz researcher Kilian Hempe told Efe, serve to show that “civil society is more numerous than right-wing extremism”, but they also allow the AfD to “play the victim”.
Earlier this year, the party was forced to dissolve Alternativa Jovem, which was threatened with banning after it was accused of promoting xenophobic ideas and several scandals, from racist chants to organizing paramilitary training.