Germany’s Far-Right Party Dissolves Youth Branch to Avoid Ban

The extremist youth group affiliated with the German far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), opted to dissolve itself on Monday to preempt a possible ban that may damage the AfD as it prepares to become the country’s largest opposition party in the legislature, Politico reported.

The group, known as “Young Alternative,” was classified as a right-wing extremist group by Germany’s federal domestic intelligence service in 2023. Because of this classification, the group faced a potential ban under a German law that seeks to prevent a revival of the county’s Nazi past.

Both the AfD and the youth group were in favor of dissolving the organization, a move seen as an attempt to protect the AfD, analysts said.

A ban on Young Alternative would have directly impacted the AfD because of the organizational and personnel overlaps of the two organizations.

Many members of the now-dissolved group will join a new youth organization founded by the AfD that, unlike the Young Alternative, will be under the direct control of the party leadership to make it more difficult to ban.

The AfD, which came in second in February’s elections, was the second-most preferred party among voters aged 18 to 21.

Some German leaders have previously suggested banning the AfD itself – which is monitored as a “suspected” right-wing extremist organization by Germany’s federal domestic intelligence – but attempts in the past have faltered, according to Le Monde.

According to the German constitution, political parties that try to subvert democracy through democratic means are liable to be banned, but it has proven very difficult to do so. Still, two parties have been barred in (what was then) West Germany’s postwar period – the neofascist Socialist Reich Party in 1952 and the Communist Party of Germany in 1956. Two recent attempted bans on the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) were unsuccessful.