“aLice? Who the hell is Alice? ” In 1995, European audiences were stunned when the Dutch band Gompie achieved unexpected success by adding the risqué lyrics to Smokey’s 1970s hit “I Live Next Door to Alice.” Thirty years later, questions about the mercurial co-leader of Germany’s powerful anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) are once again on the minds of many. Ahead of the German general election on February 23, many people want to know. Who exactly is Alice Weidel?
That’s a related question. For the first time since the Nazi era, a far-right party has ambitions to lead Germany’s government. The AfD is fielding 45-year-old Weidel as its first candidate for prime minister. Although it is unlikely that she will become president this time, her party is second in opinion polls and is on track to double its vote share to more than 20%.
Weidel, now undoubtedly a major figure in German politics, is attracting more media attention than ever before. However, it is not easy to determine what she will actually do if she becomes prime minister. Although she describes herself as a “liberal conservative” rather than a far-right person, there is a dark side to her rhetoric that blurs the line between conviction and opportunism.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk recently endorsed the AfD as the “last spark of hope” for Germany in a controversial op-ed in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Referring to the fact that Mr. Weidel was in a same-sex relationship with a woman from Sri Lanka, Mr. Musk asked, “Does that sound like Hitler to you?”
Indeed, Weidel’s profile does not lend itself to comparisons with Hitler. An economist by trade, she has lived and worked all over the world, from Canada and Japan to Singapore and China. She spent five years in Beijing, where she perfected her Chinese. I started learning Chinese on my own from the age of 14 using cassettes. Weidel worked at Goldman Sachs and advised the Bank of China. She is currently in a private partnership with filmmaker Sarah Bossard and is raising two sons in a beautiful Swiss town.
No, it’s not particularly radical. But at the AfD’s latest party conference, the same Alice Weidel called for a “massive repatriation” of foreigners, the destruction of Germany’s “windmills of shame” and an end to “queer woke madness” At the time, it certainly sounded radical. Despite her own situation, she was satisfied that the AfD limited the definition of family to “father, mother, and children.” With Mr. Weidel in charge, the party has reached its most aggressive stance yet.
But her team has previously pushed for moderation, particularly by removing the far-right term “immigration” from the AfD’s election manifesto. The term refers to the mass deportation of immigrants, regardless of their settlement status. But when Mr. Weidel realized that his party would not budge, he made a U-turn with surprising speed and ease. She reassured the conference that mass deportations were being considered and that “if you call it re-immigration, you’re going to call it re-immigration.” She emphasized every syllable to enthusiastic applause.
Ideological flexibility is Weidel’s trademark. More recently, she has tweeted on social media that despite the clearly anti-American tone of the AfD manifesto, which says that “US interests are increasingly divorced from German interests” and favors closer ties with Germany. We warmly congratulate Donald Trump on his successful inauguration.” Connection with Russia. It’s no coincidence that she announced publicly that she was invited to President Trump’s inauguration, but chose not to go. The message is clear. She has strong American supporters, but she is not an Atlanticist.
Unlike other members of the party, Mr. Weidel has always shown the political acumen to balance power politics with ideological purity. She joined the AfD in 2013, long before it was founded as a Eurosceptic party and moved further to the right. For years, she has been involved in efforts to oust radicals like Thuringia’s AfD leader Björn Höcke as responsible figures. However, he proved too powerful to be eliminated, so Weidel reconciled with her and him.
Embracing Mr. Hecke’s extremism is the price Mr. Weidel pays to remain at the top of the AfD and unite a notoriously divided party. Instead, his faction supports her leadership. Mr. Hecke has twice been fined for using the Nazi slogans “All for Germany” or “For Germany.” Alluding to this, the conference chanted “Alice to Germany,” and the “liberal-conservative” Weidel seemed to agree with this.
Her tolerance for such extreme politics and rhetoric tempts some observers to underestimate Weidel’s appeal. The German media verdict was harsh following a recent public conversation between her and Mr Musk on social media platform X. “In terms of content, it was very weak,” thought a fact-checker employed by German public broadcaster ARD. Others mocked Weidel’s English, the way she chuckled at Musk’s jokes and the platitudes and falsehoods mixed into the discussion, like Weidel’s claim that “Hitler was a communist.”
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It would be a mistake to think that a public appearance deemed extreme or ridiculous to liberal commentators would harm Weidel. These people are not the target audience. Check out our live chat with Musk, which was attended by over 200,000 people. Many of the comments from listeners praised the conversation’s podcast-like style for not being rambling or weak and open-ended. Weidel’s charm should never be underestimated. A recent survey listed her as the most popular candidate if Germans were able to vote directly for the chancellor.
Weidel may represent the more moderate wing of the AfD. But as she has proven in recent weeks, she also has a steely determination to do whatever it takes to get to the top. It is this best-looking face of the AfD that the opposition should be most concerned about. Whoever the real Alice Weidel is, she is nothing if not ambitious.
Katia Heuer is a German-British historian and journalist. Her latest book is Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.
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