EXTREMISMAfD’s Remigration Agenda: Germany’s Challenge of Far-Right Extremism
In November 2023, the German populist, far-right AfD organized a covert meeting in Potsdam which featured the leader of the ethnonationalist Identitarian Movement, Martin Sellner. The attendees, adherents of a conspiracy theory commonly known as the Great Replacement, which claims that there is a deliberate attempt to replace the white European population with migrants of color, debated ways forcefully to deport migrants who failed to assimilate, had non-German lineage, or demonstrated support for asylum seekers.
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) organized a covert meeting in November 2023 in Potsdam which featured the leader of the far-right Identitarian Movement,1 Martin Sellner. This meeting has sparked outrage over the AfD’s remigration agenda, referred to as a ‘masterplan’.2 This meeting was attended by three key figures within AfD—Ulrich Siegmund (Parliamentary Group Leader for Saxony-Anhalt), Tim Krause (Chair of the District Party in Potsdam and AfD Spokesperson) and Roland Hartwig (former aid to Alice Weidel, co-leader of AfD). They debated on ways to remigrate or forcefully deport those individuals to an unnamed country in Africa, who in their opinion failed to assimilate, had non-German lineage or demonstrated support for asylum seekers.
The attendees are adherents of a conspiracy theory commonly known as the Great Replacement, as per which there is a deliberate attempt to replace the white European population with migrants of color, thereby altering the racial demography for good. While Remigration, a sociological term, refers to a voluntary migration of people back to their homelands, the far-right extremists, white nationalists, and conspiracy theorists have promoted a pejorative understanding of the subject. They have manipulated the term and endorsed it as a forced migration or deportation of non-members—migrants, asylum seekers, and their families.3 Remigration, a term considered anti-Islam and xenophobic by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has been integral to AfD’s political agenda on social media platforms and in public speeches, where it has previously spoken about ‘a national and a supranational remigration agenda’.4
