One thing that’s always struck me as oddly fascinating about the AfD is their dedication to constructing their own reality, to the point of self-deception. Some of them seem to genuinely believe their own narrative, painting themselves as the righteous Alternative für Deutschland, an upright middle-class movement with moral integrity, the sole caretaker of the nation’s destiny. True patriots.
Unfortunately for them, reality (the real one) has a nasty habit of catching up with them, repeatedly. Now it has happened again, forcing them to hide their official standard-bearer for the European election campaign.
This isn’t because Maximilian Krah, a 47-year-old lawyer and ostentatious Catholic, is a notorious MEP who in 2019 hired a staffer whom French far rightist Marine Le Pen had sacked when photos surfaced of him dressed up as an orthodox Jew, with – according to reports – “his face distorted, his hands like claws”. Or because he is an eccentric chauvinist. None of this had been an obstacle that stopped AfD from proclaiming Krah their Spitzenkandidat in June’s poll.
The game-changer is Krah’s closest European Parliament aide, Chinese-born Jian Guo, who has been arrested for allegedly working as an “employee of a Chinese secret service”.
When news broke of Jian’s arrest, it seemed to confirm the suspicions of those who had long been criticising Krah’s suspiciously pro-Chinese stance. And it also emerged that the AfD frontrunner had been questioned by the FBI during a visit to the US in December 2023 carrying a four-digit sum of cash. The investigators wanted to know about Krah’s contacts with a pro-Kremlin activist.
While one could speculate about whether Krah’s patriotism is directed towards Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping rather than the Vaterland, the MEP says he is innocent. Nevertheless, his party – unable to erase their No 1 candidate from the ballot paper at this late stage – decided to pull videos and posters of him. Last weekend, Krah didn’t attend the party’s European election conference, where speakers did their utmost to avoid even mentioning their zombie candidate.
There’s a fall-back option, of course. Ah, wait, actually there isn’t, because No 2 on the nominee list, Petr Bystron, is entangled in his own patriotism row as well. According to the Czech secret service, Bystron collected at least €20,000 (£17,100) in connection with the pro-Kremlin network “Voice of Europe”. In an audio file, he allegedly complains about receiving €200 notes (“difficult to cash in”). Bystron also denies any personal wrongdoing.
None of this comes as a surprise, given the AfD’s Putin-friendly positions. The leadership had even been warned by members of its own infighting European parliamentary group. In 2022, one AfD lawmaker wrote to Berlin HQ, calling Krah “dangerously crazy”.
As usual, though, the AfD radicals bowed to the AfD extremists, who favoured Krah and Bystron – and now they all face the consequences.
During their party conference, AfD wallowed in self-pity, claiming victimhood in “a large-scale, political campaign dragging our frontrunners through the mud”. When in fact the mud-slinging is entirely self-inflicted.
This reaches beyond Germany; it is an issue for Europe’s other populist and far right parties. With the Greens and Liberals likely to lose a significant number of seats in the European elections, recent projections indicate that the European Parliament is set to shift to the right. And the Eurosceptic far right ID group (Identity and Democracy) is now worried that the – alleged – morass of treason and corruption surrounding AfD will harm their chances of success.
The Germans are increasingly seen as too extreme for the ID group, which is somewhat amusing, given that the other members aren’t exactly choir boys: the Austrian FPÖ, Vlaams Belang from Belgium, Lega from Italy and Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. There are rumours though that the French and Italians within ID could ask the AfD to leave after the election, opting instead to bring in parties led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Dutchman Geert Wilders.
Le Pen, aiming at the French presidency, is distancing herself from positions that may scare voters off, such as demands for EU withdrawal. A demand the AfD has started to echo lately, while their phantom lead candidate, Krah, has aligned himself with Le Pen’s extreme right competitor, Éric Zemmour.
The moderate political spectrum will probably turn to another Frenchman in the six weeks before the European elections: to Napoleon, who famously advised to never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake.
