Revanchism among AfD young people: AfD youth board wants a “Greater German solution”

At some point in the X comment columns you will find a lot of French accounts that can be assigned to the right-wing radical environment of the French right-wing party Rassemblement National (RN). The French right-wing Twitter bubble is outraged by a post by an AfD politician and is posting gifs of mushroom clouds, images of nuclear weapons and French soldiers.

Tenor: “Just dare, Kraut!” or in verbatim: "The Germans have never been our friends. You have to annex the Saarland and the left bank of the Rhine... and raze Berlin to the ground again, if possible." The AfD is pan-Germanic, one warns, and France needs to wake up - because the party is leading in the German polls.

The right-wing French are particularly angry because of a Bavarian leader of the AfD youth, Luca Maurice Strauf, who, curiously enough, identifies himself as “Helmut” and actually comes from Saarland. On German Unity Day, Strauf posted a revanchist map that questions the current German borders. Many of Germany's neighboring countries are marked as German in shades of blue. Including Alsace-Lorraine, which makes the French so angry.

On the occasion of the reunification holiday, Strauf had written on this card: "German unity means a Germany that unites the entire German people in one state. Today we commemorate a stage victory on the way there" (error in the original). On the map, not only parts of France, but also Austria, parts of Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Denmark, Slovakia, Romania, the Netherlands and Belgium are marked as partly German. Shortly after Strauf posted the card, he deleted the post. Nevertheless, the post went viral on social media.

It is not the first time that Strauf has expressed openly revanchist sentiments. Already on August 5th, Strauf posted a post in response to a journalist's question about what home means to him - Saarland or Bavaria - with a quote from the first verse of the German national anthem, which is now only sung by right-wing radical fraternities because of its nationalistic character: "From the Maas to the Memel, from the Etsch to the Belt." Here too: the “Greater German solution”. No wonder that Germany's neighbors are worried about "Pangermanism" in view of the AfD's electoral successes and the simultaneous rearmament.

The federal executive board of the extreme right-wing AfD youth, which has portrayed itself as professional since it was founded, appears somewhat contrite about the public image. When asked by the taz, it is said that they only found out about the article through an inquiry from the taz, as press spokesman Wendelin Fessl said: "It neither corresponds to our standards of historical politics nor our understanding of realpolitik. Patriotism does not need historical map fantasies." Politics must be measured by what it can actually achieve for the future of our country, said Fessl.

In any case, the GD board seems just as angry as the French: "We will address the matter very clearly at the next board meeting. Anyone who has political responsibility must have more in mind than the next provocative post." However, there is no talk of any serious consequences, even though Strauf is a repeat offender.

It's funny: Press spokesman Fessl is Austrian himself and, for example, shouts in a propaganda video by the AfD youth: "We are the German youth!" When asked how he viewed the Strauf post as an Austrian, he said: "I have little use for such border games. You can love your country without immediately wanting to redraw the atlas." But he also emphasizes: “German unity and reunification in 1990 are reason enough for me to celebrate October 3rd.”

In response to a taz query, Strauf himself appears to be less pompous than in his posting: with the article he supposedly did not want to demand that Germany incorporate parts of neighboring countries, but rather just point out the “common history” and “a common fate” of Germany and Austria, he writes. He deleted the post “because it was of no use.” He claims that his quote from the first verse of the national anthem was not meant as a demand.

Well: In fact, the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border was still a mobilization issue for right-wing extremists in the 90s. And there are also other pieces of the puzzle in the AfD that suggest that Strauf might not be completely alone with his stance on the German borders after 1945.

The ethnic agitator Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, for example, celebrates an annual Prussian festival. Many AfD politicians come from families that were displaced after the Second World War. Björn Höcke, whose grandparents were East Prussians, wore a Prussian flag on his lapel several times at AfD events.

And party leader Alice Weidel has in the past refused to recognize the current Polish name Głubczyce of her ancestors' hometown, as she told a right-wing extremist magazine: "Weidel is an Upper Silesian name, my family on my father's side comes from Leobschütz. I have always refused to look up what the Polish name of the city is and to rename this city."

The historian Jens-Christian Wagner saw this as a questioning of the borders drawn after 1945. The party is thus opposing reconciliation with Poland and thus an essential basis for a peaceful Germany.