This article is an AI translation of the original.
On Thursday, January 9, at 7 PM, a live talk between Elon Musk and far-right extremist Alice Weidel will take place on Twitter. For some time now, oligarch Musk has been attempting to influence the German election campaign and strengthen the anti-constitutional AfD. This article takes a closer look at who Alice Weidel is, why she is not just a harmless conversation partner, what extreme views she holds, and who occasionally finances her. This is important because she often downplays her persona in public appearances.
Alice Weidel is a leading politician of the far-right AfD, serving in the German Bundestag since 2017 and representing her party as a top candidate in several federal elections. Previously, she worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, wrote a doctoral thesis on the Chinese pension system, and held positions at Allianz Global Investors as well as various consultancy roles. Since 2022, she has co-chaired the AfD with Tino Chrupalla. Despite facing a series of critical headlines, she has secured a long-term position in the party leadership: Allegations of employing a Syrian asylum seeker as an unregistered domestic worker, an email scandal involving racist and conspiracy-theorist content, or dubious foreign donations to her campaign are just a few examples, which apparently remain acceptable to AfD voters.
Her political rhetoric frequently flirts with incitement of hatred. She regularly lashes out against migrants, stokes prejudices about Muslims or refugees, and spreads misinformation on climate change and pandemic policies. Moreover, she maintains ties and overlaps with the far-right milieu, as evidenced by her visit to the now-dissolved far-right Institute for State Policy and the hiring of far-right employees. Critics have long warned that Weidel, as co-chair of the AfD’s parliamentary group, normalizes an authoritarian, exclusionary agenda—while she herself often claims a bourgeois facade.
Is the Talk an Illegal Foreign Party Donation?
The talk in an „X-Space“ might even constitute an illegal party donation, according to Lobbycontrol. The discussion will “likely be promoted far more extensively than regular user content” on Twitter, something that typically costs money. What Musk is doing here could qualify as political advertising, and election advertising by third parties is considered a party donation. Party donations from non-EU countries (in this case, the USA) are illegal if they exceed €1,000 (Bundestag, p. 10).
Furthermore, reports have surfaced that Elon Musk allegedly manipulates the algorithm to boost the visibility of his own tweets. Data analysis shows Musk enjoys an extraordinary reach on X.
If courts follow this reasoning, the live talk between these two far-right figures could have legal consequences. However, it remains unclear how the Bundestag administration will apply the relatively new third-party campaign regulation. This would not be the first illegal party donation for the AfD.
What is clear, however, is where Weidel stands politically. She attempts to reinterpret Germany’s history around World War II and Hitler, shows indifference to the employment of far-right staff within the AfD, and makes no attempt to hide her racism. She is not the moderate alternative within the AfD; she is just as extreme as the rest of the party. Let’s look at the details.
Reinterpretation of German History
Let’s start with how Alice Weidel handles German history. When discussing the Holocaust, she speaks of a “culture of guilt” that supposedly prevails in Germany.
But what is behind this term? “Culture of guilt” has been used by the NPD and others to promote historical revisionism, essentially a reinterpretation of German history during the Nazi era. This rhetoric aims to undermine the remembrance culture of Nazi crimes, effectively downplaying these atrocities.
This was also a theme in alleged email correspondence that continues to haunt Weidel. In a 2013 email, she allegedly wrote, referring to the German government, the following:
„The reason why we are being overrun by culturally alien peoples like Arabs, Sinti, and Roma, etc., is the systematic destruction of civil society as a potential counterbalance to constitutional enemies who govern us.“
And further:
“These pigs are nothing but puppets of the victorious powers of WWII and are tasked with keeping the German people down by inducing molecular civil wars in urban centers through foreign infiltration.”
The tone of the email strongly resembles narratives promoted by the Reichsbürger movement. To this day, Weidel refuses to provide a sworn affidavit stating that the email did not originate from her.
Illegal Party Financing
We do not yet know if the talk with anti-Semite Musk constitutes an illegal foreign party donation. This issue is currently being investigated by the Bundestag administration. However, it would not be the first time Alice Weidel has received illegal donations from abroad.
In 2021, the Berlin Administrative Court ruled that the AfD must pay a fine of €396,000, three times the value of the donation, which was €132,000 (split into smaller amounts). This anonymous donation came from two companies in Switzerland to Weidel’s AfD district association in Bodenseekreis. Anonymous donations exceeding €500 are prohibited. The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court confirmed this ruling in 2023. The fine was initially imposed by the Bundestag administration.
Far-Right (Ex-)Staff Members
Following the secret meeting of far-right figures in Potsdam, uncovered by Correctiv, Weidel parted ways with her then-advisor Roland Hartwig, who also attended the meeting, officially “by mutual agreement”. Hartwig was not just any advisor—media reports described him as Weidel’s “right-hand man”. It appears Weidel attempted to smooth things over following Correctiv’s revelations.
For other far-right staff members in the AfD, Weidel seems less concerned about their ideology. A BR report last year revealed that “the AfD parliamentary group and its MPs employ more than 100 staff members who are active in organizations classified as far-right by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Among them are activists from the ‚Identitarian Movement,‘ ideological thinkers from the ‚New Right,‘ and several neo-Nazis.”
Weidel commented: Being classified as far-right “doesn’t interest me at all because it’s a value judgment”. She also stated that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not an independent authority in her view. Regarding reports on far-right employees, she attempts to discredit them, calling them “nonsense” and “all such stupid stuff.”
On the one hand, dismissing an employee likely for networking with far-right figures, while on the other, dismissing reports about far-right staff as “stupid stuff”: Alice Weidel is sometimes full of contradictions. This likely reflects an attempt to mask the far-right nature of the party or possibly fears of a party ban. But it doesn’t take much effort to see how openly racist she is.
Additionally, Alice Weidel’s office shared the contact details of far-right extremist Steve Bannon, which ultimately ended up with Prince Reuß, whose terror group planned to storm the Bundestag.
Weidel’s spokesperson Daniel Tapp was a contact of Michael S., who prepared for a race war with the far right prepper group “Refuge.” In leaked messages from Michael S. to Tapp, Michael described his work in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament faction as “Hitlerite.”
Open Racism
Weidel’s racism was on full display in 2018 in the Bundestag when she referred to refugees as “subsidized knife-wielding men” and Muslim girls as “headscarf girls.” She justifies her deliberate provocations by claiming that “polarization is a stylistic device to spark debates.” However, Weidel has always been far removed from constructive debates. As the TAZ writes:
“In a guest article for Junge Freiheit, she described Islam as an ‘archaic culture,’ warned of ‘the Islamization of our society,’ and wrote: ‘The Muslim community is solely focused on establishing a theocracy.’ She therefore argued that Islam should not enjoy ‘principled religious freedom.’ In an interview, she even called for a ban on the headscarf. The fact that religious freedom is a constitutionally guaranteed right does not deter her.”
All of this was said long before she became the AfD’s candidate for chancellor. Weidel’s radical views on migration and Islam have not been newly adopted; she has been radical from the start. No one can claim after the election that they didn’t know what Weidel stands for.
Alice Weidel’s Russia Policy
Alice Weidel blames Ukraine for the Russian invasion of the country, alleging that the country’s “lack of neutrality” is at fault. However, the fact remains that both Scholz and Baerbock assured Putin before the invasion that Ukraine would not join NATO anytime soon. On the talk show “Maischberger,” Weidel denied that Putin is a dictator and cast doubt on war crimes, such as those uncovered in the mass graves in Izium, Ukraine, where Russian forces killed civilians.
It is also true that Russian police officers were indoctrinated with a speech by Alice Weidel, which was used to justify preparing for war with Western nations. In her address, Weidel harshly criticized the German government and warned against escalating relations with Russia. This speech is now being used in Russian propaganda to confirm the necessity of preparing for a potential war with Western countries.
Conclusion
The far-right AfD often sends its federal co-leader Alice Weidel to the forefront because she appears less overtly dangerous than figures like fascist Björn Höcke or Maximilian Krah, who downplayed the SS. However, one should not be misled by the fact that Alice Weidel, as a former Goldman Sachs banker and woman at the helm of the party, does not fit the classic neo-Nazi stereotype.
Precisely because she continues to hold leadership positions within the party, Alice Weidel poses a threat to democracy. The lack of serious consequences for accepting illegal donations has shown authoritarian forces abroad that up to 20% of Germans (according to current polls) are willing to vote for a party whose leaders accept foreign funding.
Is Elon Musk now also attempting to buy influence in German politics? The interview certainly provides him with an opportunity to further expand his reach. And Alice Weidel, despite her downplaying of German fascism, past employment of far-right staff, and overt racism, may come out of this looking not so bad compared to anti-Semite and far-right extremist Musk. A win-win for American and German extremists—while democracy continues to suffer in both countries.
Article image: photocosmos1, nitpicker