How the AfD wants to come to power: “If you don’t want a coup, you have to bring about a change”
While the country debates a party ban, the AfD is in the process of reshaping society. With stores that sound as harmless as "Heimatrevier" (Hometown). A visit to Lusatia.
From the outside, the shop appears inconspicuous. A small brick building on a street corner in Großräschen, southern Brandenburg, in the heart of Lusatia. It used to be an insurance company that also sold candles. Recently, the words "Heimatrevier" (Hometown) have been emblazoned on the windows, along with an AfD coat of arms next to them. On a rainy day in May, the owner opens the door. Fabian Jank, 29 years old, a small man with a twirled mustache. He's from this area, a trained farmer, and has been a member of the Brandenburg state parliament for the AfD since last year.
At the end of March, Jank opened the "Heimatrevier" (Home Office). Officially, it's a constituency office like any other, where MPs hold consultations. They receive €1,000 a month from taxpayers for this. But Jank has more in mind than just a few citizen discussions. The place is intended to be "a meeting place for patriots," "for young and old, for everyone who currently feels unheard." Not a "sterile Politburo," as he puts it.
While Germany is debating a ban and the upgrade of the AfD to "certainly right-wing extremist" status, the party is forging ahead with its social roots. A ban, should it even come to fruition, would likely take years. Undeterred, the AfD is using the time. In rural areas, in municipalities, especially in the East. With shops as innocuous as "Heimatrevier," it's clear how well this strategy is already working. And how little its opponents have noticed it so far. Inside, the shop feels more like a cross between a pub and a café. In the middle is a counter with bar stools, next to it a "chill-out area" (Jank): a dark leather couch, beer kegs used as high tables, deer antlers on the walls. Rows of books and comics from right-wing publishers are lined up on the back shelves. There are also writings by Martin Sellner, the head of the far-right Identitarian Movement. There are also stickers: "Pride instead of Pride" and "Millions of Remigrants."
Who is Jank addressing with this? Young people, for example. Those who engage in politics on TikTok and who are causing friction at school because of their AfD sympathies. He sees it as his duty as an elected official: "To intervene where politics education fails." His message to young people: Keep your opinions to yourself at school – come here instead, read the books, and listen to the lectures. It sounds like alternative schooling. From the AfD MP.
As Jank speaks, the door opens. A young man enters the shop, which is actually closed that day. Wearing a dark jacket and a light fuzz on his upper lip, he disappears into his office next door. When he returns, he's holding a copy of "The Morality of Bomb Terror," an old study on carpet bombing in World War II. "Let me know if you need the next one," says Jank. The boy thanks him and disappears. When he's gone, Jank says curtly that "war crimes against Germans" are rarely discussed in school. He recently posted something about it. The boy is very interested. Jank belongs to a young generation of AfD members closely connected to the party's so-called front line. He used to write for Compact magazine, now for the right-wing ecology journal Die Kehre. He has just returned from Italy, from a right-wing extremist networking event in Milan: the "Remigration Summit 25," which made headlines across Europe. This was partly because members of the Identitarian Movement were banned from leaving the country. On stage, the Portuguese Afonso Gonçalves, founder of the "Reconquista" movement, articulated the vision of the New Right: "We have a dream: It's called remigration, for a Europe that in ten years will belong only to Europeans, without immigrants."
Jank says he just wanted to find out more and finds it "interesting to delve into it," especially now that the term is established here.
When Jank presented his "home territory" on social media in early April, there was applause from the New Right. "Exemplary," praised Benedikt Kaiser, one of the scene's most influential publicists and a colleague of Thuringian Bundestag member Robert Teske. Citizens' offices, Kaiser wrote, don't have to be boring places. "Turn them into lively meeting places, islands of togetherness and patriotic solidarity." Götz Kubitschek, publisher and spiritus rector of the right-wing intellectual milieu, also congratulated him. Kaiser and Kubitschek have been promoting a strategy for years that has its origins, of all things, in the writings of an Italian communist. Antonio Gramsci, imprisoned in Mussolini's prisons in the 1930s, sought an explanation for why revolutions fail. He came to the conclusion that political power is not decided solely in parliaments, but much earlier: in people's minds. Anyone who wants to bring about social change must shape everyday thinking. What people consider normal, language, habits. Gramsci called this "cultural hegemony." The New Right has adopted the concept. In Germany, it is primarily Benedikt Kaiser who describes in books how the right should no longer simply speak out against the existing order, but build its own cultural order. A counter-public made up of books, magazines, podcasts, and meeting places. His thesis: "Hegemony is not created by election results; election results are the consequence of hegemony."
Gradually, these ideas seem to be gaining traction. Fabian Jank has read all of Kaiser's books and spoken with him frequently. They've known each other for many years, says Jank. His hometown of Großräschen seems like a direct result of their conversations. And he's not the only one oriented toward the ideas of the right-wing ideologues.
Back in 2018, Hans-Christoph Berndt, the AfD parliamentary group leader in the Brandenburg state parliament, opened the "Mühle" (Mill) in Cottbus. "The living room of the citizens' movement," as the website describes it. There, too, the boundaries between political work and social gathering place blur. Party leaders like Maximilian Krah come for lectures, while there are youth meetings and a biweekly senior citizens' café. "Let's spend a few pleasant hours together over a good cup of coffee and delicious cake," reads the invitation. A few weeks ago, a pianist from Weimar came and played Bach and Chopin, folk songs, and pop music. The Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution describes the mill as a meeting place for the right-wing extremist scene.
Dominik Kaufner runs a similar office in Nauen to Jank. Recently, they had a Sunday "games afternoon" with the AfD representative. Chess, cards, and table football. They had a very informal conversation, and they didn't just talk about politics, Kaufner later posted on Facebook. At the beginning of May, Jank gave a lecture there on right-wing ecology. Two days later, Kaufner spoke in Großräschen about May 8th: The day of liberation from National Socialism? Not a day for celebration for him.
The AfD in Brandenburg offers weekly events: party pavilions in marketplaces, information booths in front of supermarkets, family festivals in Nauen, civic dialogues in Brieselang, Grünheide, and Luckenwalde. People meet for AfD beer at regulars' tables in Werder, Stahnsdorf, and Michendorf. Or at the cinema. At the beginning of June, Fabian Jank will present "Just a Pike" in Großräschen, a "ruthless documentary about the consequences of compulsory coronavirus vaccination," as he announced on Facebook. Coffee and cake will be served in his home district that afternoon. Due to space constraints, the film will then be shown at the local bowling alley. The AfD is also omnipresent in other federal states, especially in rural eastern Germany. In Brandenburg, it is taking the next step toward cultural hegemony. Hans-Christoph Berndt, the parliamentary group leader, can be reached by phone in his car at the end of May. With the mill in Cottbus, he set the tone that inspired Jank and other MPs. He also regularly organizes readings and lectures in his own citizens’ office, the “Cabinet” in Golßen.
It was "always clear" to him that more was needed than demonstrations and Monday morning walks, says Berndt. More than the frustration on the streets. Just as left-wing parties run a cultural project in almost every town, the right wing also needs to establish cultural spaces. In Brandenburg, his party is "leading by example." Overall, however, there is still a lot to do. "Many in the AfD still don't have a sense of the importance of such spaces," says Berndt. That has to change. "If you don't want a coup, you have to create a metapolitical shift." What is needed, he says, is what the '68 generation achieved: "a new normal."
What this new, right-wing normal looks like can already be observed in many places in the East. In villages where virtually everyone votes for the AfD. In Jämlitz-Klein Düben, in Lusatia, the party received 69.2 percent in the federal election. In Groß Luckow in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, it was as high as 74.7 percent. But Fabian Jank also achieved more than 40 percent in Großräschen. Here, too, a change in attitudes can be observed. One person who can talk about this, but doesn't quite understand it, is Peter Zenker. An SPD man who wins every election in Großräschen. He has been the mayor of the former open-cast mining town since the early 1990s, "for 32 years," as he proudly reports. You can reach him on the phone and hear him wrestling with the question of why the AfD's strategy is working so well in his town. Zenker grew up here, a true "Räschener." As a young man, he became mayor during what were probably the town's most difficult years. At the end of the 1980s, an entire district with 4,000 residents fell victim to open-cast mining, resulting in the largest relocation in the history of Lusatia. In the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Großräschen was considered a marginalized community. Lost and abandoned by young people, like so many regions in the East.
But the city has mastered the structural change well, says the mayor. They managed to bring the International Building Exhibition to Großräschen, and the former open-cast mine was transformed into a gigantic lake. A lot of money flowed into the city. A state-of-the-art gymnasium was built, a chic lakeside hotel, and a harbor. "Soon, people will be able to launch their boats," says Zenker.
Großräschen is now once again a recognized business location, and Lusatia as a whole is on the right track. Young people have career opportunities and can choose where they want to go. "The perceived satisfaction is high. But anyone with something to complain about votes for the AfD." It leaves him perplexed. The mayor no longer understands his citizens. They vote for him, the SPD man, in every election, and for the AfD in state and federal elections. In recent years, he says, the perception of the party has changed. "The AfD has become socially acceptable." An electable party even for those who don't vote for it. "There's no longer any scissors in people's heads," says Zenker. And among young people, the AfD has become a fashionable party. In pre-election polls at schools, it achieved almost 30 percent. The SPD, which came in second, received just half that. How dangerous this new normal can be is evident in the neighboring town of Altdöbern, says Zenker. A cultural center burned down there last year, presumably after an attack. Just recently, two suspects were arrested, apparently members of a right-wing extremist terrorist cell. One from Altdöbern, the other from Großräschen, both just 15 years old.
Nevertheless, the mayor says, the party must be dealt with pragmatically. Trench warfare achieves little in local politics. The day will come, he says, when the AfD will be part of the government somewhere. This does worry him. "But as long as they're only in the opposition, they can promise the moon." Before the last election, the AfD invested enormous amounts of money – online, on social media, and on the streets. "They had control of the lampposts." Other parties can barely keep up, he says, partly because their membership is dwindling.
The mayor seems to have only a vague idea of what goes on at Fabian Jank's Citizens' Office. "He holds office hours like any other," he says. When he drives past the shop, the blinds are usually down.
The fact that this place joins a growing number of meeting places—as part of a larger strategy—remains hidden to many. They sense that something has shifted. That the tone and the way of thinking are changing. But how this change comes about remains invisible. Perhaps precisely because the places appear so inconspicuous.
With father to the AfD officeOn this rainy May day, Fabian Jank's door at Heimatrevier opens repeatedly. A man comes in, in a great mood, just wanting to say hello. Hannes, a "traditional Räschener" who has since become a party friend, recently signed the membership application Jank had given him at an event at the bowling alley.
Before he can continue, two teenagers arrive, one 15, the other 16: Tom and Leon. They're carrying backpacks, fresh from school. "Good day," they say confidently. Tom explains that he often has problems with his teachers because he likes the AfD. That's why he likes coming here to his home district. He was there with his father for the opening. Since then, he's been here every Thursday. Drinking Spezi, reading a book. Last time: "The Liberation of Nemmersdorf." A comic about a mass shooting by the Red Army in East Prussia.
Fabian Jank immediately points out the film screening about "compulsory vaccination." The boys enter it in their smartphone calendars. Today, however, they only want to pick up stickers. For their bedroom doors and Xboxes. And for their friends who aren't from Großräschen. They're "always very interested too." Their favorite sticker? "Millionfold remigration."
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Berliner-zeitung
