Last weekend, the German city of Essen literally bounced off the walls — namely its law enforcement bodies. The reason behind this true emergency that primarily affected ordinary people was party congress of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a political pariah with the German authorities. A zero tolerant attitude towards the party has been escalating in the country for months as it faces accusations of right-wing radicalism and extremism, although results of the recent European Parliament elections featured it as second-popular among the German society as a whole, next to the CDU/CSU bloc alone. And in East Germany, it has been a confident leader altogether.

Herbert Reul, Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia where the city of Essen is located, said the place hosted 32 rallies against the AfD congress in three days starting Friday, engaging a total of 70,000 people. In particular, Saturday saw them do their best to obstruct the passage of congress delegates to the meeting hall. This eventually entailed fierce clashes with the police that caused injuries in 28 LEOs. Already on Sunday, the demonstrations got "exclusively peaceful in nature, as the police had spent several weeks preparing for this sort of things, and the proactive operation plan fully justified itself," the minister noted with satisfaction.

Amid violent clashes between AfD opponents and the police outside the conference hall, the congress itself proved "relatively peaceful," local observers claimed. In particular, it featured federal party board re-election, with former co-chairs Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla remaining at the helm. Notably, an incredible idyll prevailed when they were nominated — Chrupalla offered choosing the candidacy of "dear Alice Weidel", who, in turn, responded with all but the same language when nominating him. In both cases, there was no alternative choice. Ms. Weidel enjoyed 80 percent of delegate votes, and Mr. Chrupalla got 83 percent. To the audience applause, the latter declared that "one day, the AfD will become Germany’s major political force."

It remains to be seen whether this harmony between two party leaders continues into spring 2025, when the issue of nominating a candidate for German Chancellor is likely to arise, with the Bundestag election scheduled for next fall. In the meantime, five new members have appeared on the party's board, and Alice Weidel is the one and only lady in the party’s supreme body. In general, the process of electing the 14 board members was swift and hunky-dory. The party leadership is clearly interested in demonstrating unity in its ranks, because September is set to feature elections to the Landtags (parliaments) of three eastern states — Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg.

Here, the AfD has a real chance to win its first victory not even in a single, but in all the three federal lands at once. However, it will hardly manage to form a government on its own, because all the other parties — the traditional CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, Greens, the Left Party and even Sarah Wagenknecht’s newly created Union party — have renounced cooperation with the AfD in advance. Anyway, the current congress saw it do whatever it takes to set its image right. Thus, the Alternative for Germany announced withdrawal from the Identity and Democracy (ID) faction of right-wing parties in the European Parliament.

This move may be seen as quite formal, because the AfD joined the association in September last year only. But already in late May, the ID faction halted cooperation with the AfD over a scandalous interview by the party’s EP candidate Maximilian Krah, who said that "not all members of the Waffen-SS should be judged as criminals." Another EP candidate from the AfD, Petr Bystron, was accused by Germany’s law enforcement of receiving payments from Russia, and the subsequent investigation played havoc with the party’s entire image. As a result, it was compelled to look for other candidates.

In this regard, regret was voiced at the current congress that the figure of 15.9 percent achieved by the AfD during the voting for candidates to the European Parliament is okay, but still, it could have reached 20 percent if party candidates had been picked up more carefully. Naturally, it was more about self-criticism alone in the congress hall. For example, AfD co-chairman Alice Weidel lambasted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition cabinet, saying the following, in particular: "Dear government, get lost, after all! Give us room to hold a new election!" As per German Counterintelligence’s supervision of the AfD on extremism suspicions, Alice Weidel pointed out that the agency itself was "an enemy of the Constitution, and should be therefore eliminated in its current form."

When discussing present-day Germany’s foreign policy course, Ms. Weigel earned an ovation after stating that "it is in the interests of Germany and Europe that Ukraine should not be part of the European Union." "We oppose any Melonization," another party co-chairman Tino Chrupalla stressed in his speech, referring to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her support for the Kiev regime. The resolution further to AfD’s congress in Essen reads that the party opposes weaponry supplies to Ukraine, while still condemning Russia's action against it.