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Early Saturday morning, the temperature in Pfiffelbach is just above freezing. The »Pfiffelburg«, a hotel on the outskirts of the small village, is surrounded by cars from all over Thuringia. Police cars park discreetly in the middle.
Here, near Weimar, the AfD state holds its party conference. In the middle of the lockdown, he wants to confirm Björn Höcke and his co-chairman Stefan Möller at the top.
In front of the hotel entrance there is a queue of many men and some women, very few of them with mouth and nose protection. The Federal Vice President of the AfD, Stephan Brandner, also walks unmasked and happily shakes hands with everyone he meets. He knows almost everyone.
And the corona pandemic? Isn’t that a reason to postpone the meeting? “No,” replies the member of the Bundestag. “We will show others how it is done.”
How it works can be seen inside the hallway. About 250 chairs are placed, in pairs, at a safe distance, which are quickly occupied. A mask requirement only applies to those who are not in place, but many do not even adhere to it. Those who protect themselves have mainly chosen the blue AfD model with the label “freedom of expression”. Also popular is the version in black, red and gold with the inscription »Muzzle«.
But the media does not fit the AfD’s concept of hygiene protection. You have to leave the room before the party conference starts. Instead, a bumpy live stream is offered on the internet.
Meanwhile, Björn Höcke has arrived at the »Pfiffelburg«, without masks and emphatically in a good mood. “Presence is important to us,” he tells television cameras. “We will not let Corona destroy our policy.”
The year 2020 was not an easy one for Höcke, although he was still considered a match hero in February. At that time, with the help of the CDU, FDP, and a straw man, he had succeeded in removing the only left-wing prime minister of the republic from office. The victory of his ethnic “wing” seemed perfect.
But just a month later, Bodo Ramelow was back, and the AfD was more isolated than ever. As Jürgen Habermas later wrote, Höcke had shown the CDU that “opportunistic incorporation of a potential voter” does not work.
At the same time, constitutional protection increased the pressure on Höcke. In March, the Federal Office classified the “wing” he led as a right-wing extremist. Höcke was forced by the majority of the federal executive to at least formally dissolve the association.
Soon after, Bundeschef Jörg Meuthen organized a slim majority on the board to declare the membership of Andreas Kalbitz null and void. Höcke, who had led the wing together with the Brandenburg regional chief, spoke of “treason” and promised retaliation. It would not allow “the split and destruction” of the party, Höcke said.
But the threat turned out to be hollow. After Kalbitz beat up a friend from the party in hospital and lost in court, nothing more was heard from Höcke. Instead, he tried to instrumentalize Corona in a more extreme and conspicuous way than most in his party. He conjured a “rule of fear” and described the masks as a “symbol of a new state of authority” in which “a state of emergency” and “arbitrariness” prevailed.
In summer, Höcke even declared the end of the pandemic. “Corona is over, and Corona won’t come back either,” he said, only to then blatantly surf the second wave: he screamed, the “virocracy” threatened “apartment raiding”, “imprisonment” and “forced vaccinations.” «.
In his speech in Pfiffelbach, Höcke describes preventive measures as part of a campaign against the AfD. Because this, he says, makes mobilization difficult. He sees himself as a kind of public enemy number 1: after a “tactical masterpiece”, even a “piece of world history” was achieved in Thuringia with the deselection of Ramelow, the system and the “political complex-” media “are now fighting back.
“We have shaken the political establishment,” Höcke says. “But we do not abdicate.”
The AfD head of country mentions Kalbitz’s expulsion only marginally as an “unjust attack.” Even when asked, he remains surprisingly defensive. “I think the party is in a good consolidation phase,” he told SPIEGEL. But he continues to see himself as a “keyword for the federal party.” The “socially patriotic course” he is following in Thuringia is also “correct and effective” for the rest of the AfD.
But then, don’t you have to get into federal politics, as you’ve been suggesting for years? Höcke hesitates. He is keeping a candidacy for the Bundestag open after the state elections scheduled for April, he says vaguely. After all, who knows what next year will bring.
But even his supporters in his state party do not believe that Höcke will go to Berlin. In the Bundestag he has to wait to be pushed to the back seat, it is said. Thuringia, however, remains its power base. From here, you can control your national network in the most efficient way. And no one here dares to oppose him.
Is that so? In Pfiffelbach, nearly 84 percent of the 232 members present voted for Höcke on Saturday. A completely unknown competitor who, by his own admission, only competes so that there is “a chance to vote,” receives ten percent of the votes.
