ORANIENBURG: At a campaign rally for Germany’s far-right AfD, one of the party’s most famous faces is being harassed by flag-waving teenagers looking for selfies. Young activists treat Maximilian Krah like a rock star at a rally in Oranienburg, in the former communist region of Brandenburg, where Sunday’s vote is taking place. Controversial even within his own party, the forty-seven-year-old MEP has tens of thousands of followers on TikTok. Seventeen-year-old Jorn Paul Plewka, wearing a black hoodie, is one of those “attracted to the AfD by Krah’s immigration videos,” the youth told AFP. In a demographic situation where the far right had previously struggled, the AfD now found more support, political communication expert Johannes Hillje said. “They found another way to get to them,” Hillje said. In recent elections in two other eastern states, Thuringia and Saxony, the AfD did relatively better with voters aged 18 to 24. In Thuringia, where the party achieved its first regional election victory, the AfD was chosen by 38 percent of voters in this age group, about 33 percent overall, according to the survey. “Young people are life insurance for this party… There is a good chance for the AfD that these voters will vote for them again in the future,” Hillje said. Polls ahead of Sunday’s vote show the AfD has a nose ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, who have won every regional election in Brandenburg since reunification. For 21-year-old Max, who declined to give his last name, the AfD was above all about “Germany first”. Tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, a young salesman told AFP that he had converted his parents and grandparents to the far-right party. “They noticed things weren’t working anymore,” he explained, explaining how his 72-year-old grandmother returned to work as a nurse to supplement her state pension – which is less generous in the east than in the west. country. Jason Sowada, 14, whose parents vote for the Social Democrats, said he was drawn to the AfD because he “doesn’t feel safe anymore”. “Some of my friends were attacked with knives by migrants and had to go to the hospital,” said Sowada, who will have to wait for his first vote in the election. Another party supporter, Jeremy Saleschke – who at 15 is also too young to vote – said he found it difficult to study at school because “half the students don’t speak German”. Among the counter-protesters at the AfD rally, Eike Simonrinn, 21, worried about the popularity of the far right among his old school friends. “The AfD is about everyone, regardless of income or social class,” Simonrinn told AFP. “In Brandenburg, the AfD is the only party that distributes leaflets outside schools,” Anna-Sophie Heinze, a professor at the University of Trier, told AFP. The youth organization of the “Junge Alternative” party has been at the forefront of efforts to build support from an early age. The group “offers a variety of leisure activities, barbecue nights, games or bowling, field trips to recruit new members,” Heinze said. AfD’s message to young people sticks to the party’s main lines: opposition to immigration, environmental policy and German support for Ukraine, as well as blaming mainstream parties for economic stagnation. Some AfD politicians have also called for an end to Germany’s culture of penance for Nazi crimes after World War II. They include the party leader in Thuringia, Bjoern Hoecke, who was recently convicted of deliberately using the Nazi-era slogan “Alles fuer Deutschland” (All for Germany). Taken literally, 17-year-old Jorn Paul Plewka sees no problem with the statement. “It’s important to do something for your country,” he said But Plewka said a recent school trip to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Oranienburg was “important to explain to young people what happened there”.
