Alexander Gauland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Leader of the Alternative for Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 2 December 2017 –30 November 2019 Servingwith Jörg Meuthen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Frauke Petry | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Tino Chrupalla | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leader of the Opposition | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 24 October 2017 –26 October 2021 Servingwith Alice Weidel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chancellor | Angela Merkel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Sahra Wagenknecht Dietmar Bartsch | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Ralph Brinkhaus | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leader of the Alternative for Germany in the Bundestag | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 26 September 2017 –30 September 2021 ServingwithAlice Weidel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chief Whip | Bernd Baumann | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Deputy | Tino Chrupalla Peter Felser Leif-Erik Holm Sebastian Münzenmaier Beatrix von Storch | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Tino Chrupalla | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
State Secretary and Chief of the Hessian State Chancellery | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 24 April 1987 –5 April 1991 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Minister-President | Walter Wallmann | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Paul Leo Giani | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Hans Joachim Suchan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Member of the Bundestag for Brandenburg | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Assumed office 24 October 2017 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Multi-member district | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Constituency | AfD List | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Alexander Eberhardt Gauland 20 February 1941 Chemnitz,German Reich | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Political party | Alternative for Germany (2013–present) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other political affiliations | Christian Democratic Union (1973–2013) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic partner | Carola Hein | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Children | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | University of Marburg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Eberhardt Alexander Gauland (born 20 February 1941) is a German politician,journalist and lawyer who has served as leader of the right-wing political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Bundestag since September 2017 and co-leader of the party from December 2017 to November 2019. He has been a Member of the Bundestag (MdB) since September 2017. Gauland was the party's co-founder and was its federal spokesman from 2017 to 2019 and the party leader for the state of Brandenburg from 2013 to 2017. [1]
Gauland was born in 1941 in Chemnitz,a city that became part of East Germany in 1949 and was renamed Karl-Marx-Stadt. After graduating from high school in 1959,he fled as a refugee to West Germany. He studied political science and law at Marburg,where he also received his doctorate. [2]
In 1972,Gauland entered the Federal Press Office and worked as the Director of the Office of the Mayor of Frankfurt am Main for 10 years. [1]
Afterwards,he became the head of a department of the Federal Ministry for the Environment,Nature Conservation,Building and Nuclear Safety in Bonn and Member of the Hessian Prime Minister's cabinet. [1]
From 1991 to 2006,he worked as an editor of the local newspaper Märkische Allgemeine in Potsdam. [1]
On the morning of 25 March 2010,German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly promised there would be no direct financial aid to Greece,but reversed that statement hours later by agreeing with the leaders of the Euro countries to send the first of many "rescue packages" to Greece. Gerd Robanus,Assessor in the Federal Executive of the CDU-Business Association cited this as the reason for founding the Alternative for Germany together with Alexander Gauland,Konrad Adam and Bernd Lucke. [3]
In February 2014,Gauland received about 80 percent of the vote during an Extraordinary National Congress in Diedersdorf,becoming chairman of the Brandenburg County Association of Alternative for Germany. [4]
The AfD got 12.2 percent of the vote in the 2014 Brandenburg state election,enabling it to enter the assembly of that state for the first time. On Tuesday,10 July 2014 Gauland opened the inaugural session of the Landtag of Brandenburg: [5]
As part of this speech,after quoting Edmund Burke,Gauland wished the other members of parliament "all the strength and the courage,to tackle the tasks now ahead of them,in the interest of the voters and in the interest of the common good". [6]
Before becoming an AfD founding member Gauland was a member of the CDU. In 2012 Gauland became involved in the Berliner Kreis ("Berlin circle"),a loose association of federal and state politicians within the CDU,which has been trying for years to make the CDU conservative again,because they consider that under Angela Merkel's leadership it has moved away from these ideals. [7]
He is a supporter of a line that is both conservative on the societal level and liberal on the economic level. He opposed the idea of an aid plan for Greece,which was then plunged into an economic crisis. He called for the closure of Germany's and the European Union's borders,targeting Muslims in particular. [8]
Alexander Gauland said he can not detect any right-wing extremists or radicals at the PEGIDA-Demonstrations. Gauland said:"I do not see right-wing extremists. I see citizens who demonstrate out of concern about developments in Germany,who are afraid. But I haven't seen any right-wing extremists,and we are not the allies of the right-wing extremists,but we are the allies of the people who have these concerns." [9]
In May 2016,Gauland reportedly made comments about Bayern Munich and black German international footballer Jérôme Boateng in a conversation with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . The paper cited Gauland,"people like [Boateng] as a footballer,but they don't want to have a Boateng as a neighbour". A controversy arose about this sentence. Gauland defended himself,saying he was fooled by the newspaper and it had been a background discussion,which was classified as confidential and thus not intended for publication. The newspaper refuted this. Gauland added that the effect of the statement –which in his words was meant descriptive –was distorted by the headline of the newspaper,"Gauland insults Boateng" (Gauland beleidigt Boateng). The newspaper had no audio recording of the statement,but independently written memos of two journalists. While Boateng himself stated that he was "saddened" by the statement of Gauland,the German federal government said it was "a vile and sad sentence" (ein niederträchtiger und ein trauriger Satz). [10] But also the FAS was criticised for making "mistakes". [11]
In September 2017,a video emerged of Gauland in which he said that Germany should "be proud of" its soldiers in both world wars and people should no longer "reproach" Germans for the Second World War. He was quoted as saying:"If the French are rightly proud of their emperor and the Britons of Nelson and Churchill,we have the right to be proud of the achievements of the German soldiers in two world wars". He continued,"If I look around Europe,no other people has dealt as clearly with their past wrongs as the Germans." [12] In response,Germany's justice minister tweeted that the statements showed that Gauland's AfD was on the extreme right. [13] Gauland's comment was defended by numerous right-leaning supporters both publicly and on social media. [14]
Gauland is one of the party founders. From 2013 to 2017,he was party leader in the state Brandenburg and entered the Landtag of Brandenburg in the 2014 election.
He resigned as party leader in Brandenburg,when he led the AfD in the 2017 German federal election next to Alice Weidel,with whom he's now leading the AfD group in the Bundestag. In December 2017,he was elected co-leader of the party next to Jörg Meuthen. In November 2019,he resigned as party leader.
Gauland's life companion Carola Hein is editor of a local newspaper,the Märkische Allgemeine ,which he had previously edited. [15]
As a 26-year-old man,Gauland suffered from depression. He also suffered a heart attack in 2007,and has been taking medication to lower his blood pressure ever since. [16]
Gauland is a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany. [17] His daughter is a Protestant pastor and publicly distanced herself from her father's statements on refugees in 2016. [18]
Kurt Georg Kiesinger was a German politician who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969. Before he became Chancellor he served as Minister President of Baden-Württemberg from 1958 to 1966 and as President of the Federal Council from 1962 to 1963. He was Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1967 to 1971.
Erika Steinbach is a German right-wing politician. She previously served as a member of the Bundestag from 1990 until 2017.
The new states of Germany are the five re-established states of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) that unified with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) with its 10 "old states" upon German reunification on 3 October 1990.
Joachim Wilhelm Gauck is a German politician who served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany.
Federal elections were held in Germany on 24 September 2017 to elect the members of the 19th Bundestag. At stake were at least 598 seats in the Bundestag, as well as 111 overhang and leveling seats determined thereafter.
Alternative for Germany is a right-wing populist political party in Germany. AfD is known for its Euroscepticism, as well as for opposing immigration to Germany. As a right-wing party, AfD is commonly positioned on the radical right, a subset of the far-right, within the family of European political parties that generally does not reject democracy.
Bernd Lucke is a German economist, professor, author and former politician. He was a co-founder of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in 2013 and served as the party's federal chairman. He was elected a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for AfD in 2014.
Björn Höcke is a German politician and a member of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Along with Andreas Kalbitz, Höcke was the leader of the AfD's far-right Der Flügel faction, which the German government's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution declared a right-wing extremist organization.
The 2016 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election was held on 4 September 2016 to elect the members of the 7th Landtag of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The incumbent grand coalition between the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Minister-President Erwin Sellering retained its majority and continued in office.
Alice Elisabeth Weidel is a German politician who has been serving as co-chairwoman of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party alongside Tino Chrupalla since June 2022. Since October 2017, she has held the position of leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Weidel became a member of the Bundestag (MdB) in the 2017 federal election, where she was the AfD's lead candidate alongside Alexander Gauland. In the 2021 federal election, she once again served as their lead candidate, alongside Tino Chrupalla. From February 2020 to July 2022, Weidel held the position of chairwoman of the AfD state association in Baden-Württemberg.
Michael Kretschmer is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Minister President of Saxony since December 2017. Since 2022, he has been one of four deputy chairs of the CDU, under the leadership of chairman Friedrich Merz.
Ingo Senftleben is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
The 2019 Thuringian state election was held on 27 October 2019 to elect the members of the 7th Landtag of Thuringia. The outgoing government was a coalition consisting of The Left, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and The Greens, led by Minister-President Bodo Ramelow.
The Values Union is a German party founded on February 17, 2024 by transforming a 7-year-old registered association with the same name. According to its own information, in 2022 the Values Union had around 4,000 members; with about 3,000 also being the members of the CDU. In early 2024, the Values Union positioned itself as a "conservative-liberal" middle ground between the CDU/CSU and AfD.
Martin Patzelt is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Brandenburg from 2013 until 2021.
The Desiderius Erasmus Stiftung e.V. is a German political party foundation. It is politically associated with but independent of the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD). The foundation's headquarters are located in Berlin. Its current chairwoman is the former Christian-democratic Member of Parliament Erika Steinbach.
The 2020 Thuringian government crisis, also known as the Thuringia crisis, was triggered by the election of Thomas Kemmerich (FDP) as Thuringian Minister President with votes from the AfD, CDU and FDP on February 5, 2020. The election attracted considerable national and international attention because, for the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, a Minister President was elected with votes from a far-right populist party, in this case the AfD.
Andreas Kalbitz is a German politician and was from 2013 to 2020 member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and since 2017 chairman of the faction of his former party in the Landtag of Brandenburg, a state parliament.
Marie-Thérèse Kaiser is a German far-right politician and former model, member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The Rotenburg action alliance Aufstehen gegen Rassismus described her as one of the most important activists of the German Neue Rechte political scene.
Hannes Gnauck is a German politician of AfD. He is federal chairman of the far-right youth organization of AfD, JA and since 2021 member of the Bundestag.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)