Somewhere between a renaming and a re-founding – deceptively labelled “Generation Germany” (GG) – Germany’s far-right, or neo-Nazi, AfD has given itself a new youth organization.

The cunning, innocent, and thoroughly deceptive name – “Generation Deutschland” – clearly could not be “HJ 2.0” or the more modern version of the HDJ – Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend. At one point the HDJ’s Nazi connotations and ideology became all too obvious; the state declared it illegal. The neo-fascist AfD’s “Generation Deutschland” is designed to avoid this fate.

The founding of the AfD’s new youth platoon was a right-wing revelation. As has become common for the neo-fascist AfD, the minions’ congregation of the neo-fascistic faith-“fools” was accompanied by loud and persistent protests organised by Germany’s democratic civil society. At the meeting, right-wing extremists, neo-Nazis, right-wing populists and members of neo-fascist networks shook hands.

At the well-choreographed party show, the minions’ new strongman – Jean-Pascal Hohm – was installed as the AfD’s new Jungführer. According to the script, party boss Tino Chrupalla – internally known as “Chrupy” – dutifully congratulated the new Unterscharführer.

With plenty of counter-protests in the West German city of Gießen, the AfD assumed its favourite “we are the victims” role – one the party apparatchiks had rehearsed for months. They came well prepared.

The AfD’s pretty-face-of-fascism – Alice Weidel – had arrived “especially” to greet the far-right youth. Ever since Hermann – recently played by Russell Crowe – the second-in-command’s appearance is announced as a “special appearance” to boost morale.

Meanwhile, protests and blockades by tens of thousands prevented a punctual start – to the annoyance of the AfD’s stooges. With a two-hour delay, sub-Rottenführer Weidel finally appeared at the lectern, flanked by four large black-red-gold national flags. Sadly for the assembled extremists, neither Germany’s Imperial black-white-red flag nor a “Bannfahne” or “Gefolgschaftsfahne” were hoisted.

The Swiss lesbian declared: “I didn’t think that something like this would happen again in Germany” – by which she most likely did not mean the founding of a new neo-fascist youth organisation.

Regarding the mass protest against her, Weidel denounced the demonstrators while claiming that the AfD was “being treated with violence”. Overwhelmingly, violence in Germany has historically come from the right – from the massacres of the Peasant Wars in 1525 to Dachau, Auschwitz and the modern-day NSU network.

Being the most anti-democratic political party in Germany’s recent history, the deputy-demagogue called the protests “deeply undemocratic” – in faithful tradition of Joseph Goebbels, who once remarked:

“It will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy

that it gave its deadly enemies the means

by which it was destroyed.”

The AfD is committed to using democracy against democracy, to eradicate democracy and replace it with the Führerprinzip.

Weidel’s bellowing also included the usual all-purpose broadside against “the media” – Germany’s democratic press, which the AfD has not yet succeeded in subjecting to Gleichschaltung [the elimination of a free press]. Not yet.

She focused, as she had seen on Germany’s influential nightly TV-news, the Tagesschau, on the report that the AfD was setting up a “right-wing extremist network” in Gießen. In her ideologically twisted mind, it was time for Germany’s democratic media to “disarm!”

This was accompanied by big cheers and angry glares toward the press – positioned, as always at such gatherings, behind a barrier.

Then she claimed there were no right-wing extremists on site. Meanwhile, in the lobby of the Hessenhalle in Gießen, far-right publisher Götz Kubitschek sold neo-fascist wares – alongside his son, Wieland Kubitschek, an activist of the neo-fascist Identitarian Movement (IB).

Kubitschek’s far-right propaganda apparatus publishes instructions on how to deal with democratic opposition, and Martin Sellner’s racist hallucinations on “remigration” – the ethnic cleansing of Germany and Europe to establish an Aryan Volksgemeinschaft.

The AfD and its youth platoons, Kubitschek, Björn Höcke, Weidel & Co. advocate expelling or expatriating those deemed “not German enough”. When their secretive Wannsee 2.0 meeting was uncovered, hundreds of thousands of people protested across Germany against the AfD and the rounding up of non-Germans.

Kubitschek was not the only extreme right-wing organisation on site. The IB media agency “Tannwald Media” – creators of AI-generated racist and pseudo-Germanic memes – also had a booth. And there were neo-Nazis selling their “patriot” (code for neo-fascist) merchandise, distributing “remigration” stickers and those alphabetically coded as “1161” – Anti-Antifascist Action.

At the time the AfD youth regrouped, right-wing violence, antisemitic attacks and AfD poll numbers were at record highs in Germany. With the ideological shift to the right, German neo-Nazi thugs feel empowered – through the normalization and mainstreaming of fascism – to beat up people who do not fit into their worldview.

Until their eventual Gleichschaltung, the media is blamed for a climate of fear in “our” country, Weidel shouted – it is not her country, and these are not her neo-Nazi thugs, apparently. She also claimed that her henchmen are being framed as “right-wing” – though they are, in many cases, outright neo-Nazis.

These words became absurd only moments later, when the designated chairman Jean-Pascal Hohm was elected. He openly calls himself “right-wing” and praises the work of the Identitarian Movement.

That the IB is on the AfD’s “incompatibility list” is as if Hitler had said, “Himmler runs the SS? How could he? I’m shocked!”

But such contradictions do not matter in the AfD’s twisted world – nothing a bit of old-fashioned propaganda can’t fix.

It is hardly surprising that the neo-fascist AfD’s new youth organization chose the camouflaging, deceptive, innocent-sounding name “Generation Germany” (GG).

Deception has a long tradition in Germany’s far right. After all, Hitler’s Nazis called themselves National “Socialists” even though there was nothing socialist about them: capitalism reigned freely, corporations made handsome profits from slave labour, and countless socialists were tortured and murdered in concentration camps.

“Generation Germany” suggests it wants to appear “moderate” within the AfD – the exact opposite is true: it is disciplined and extremely right-wing. Outwardly, it presents itself as professional and well-organized, but it remains part of Germany’s extreme right-wing networks.

Neo-Nazi radicals are working together to significantly influence the AfD, dragging it even further to the right. Its new boss – the Jugend-Führer – is Jean-Pascal Hohm. He is heavily networked within the neo-fascist Identitarian Movement as well as in Cottbus’ openly far-right football scene in East Germany.

As in any truly “democratic” organisation, he is elected chairman – without competition. In inadvertently funny fashion, Hohm felt compelled in his inaugural speech to address internal disputes about AfD trips to and support for Russia, stating that “neither Tino Chrupalla nor Alice Weidel are servants of Russia.”

Only recently, AfD-boss Chrupy said on German public television, “Putin hasn’t done anything to me” – while Ukrainian children are killed nightly by Russian drones and bombs.

True to his Volksgemeinschaft ideology, Hohm – the 28-year-old neo-fascist from Cottbus – declared he wants to ensure that “Germany remains the homeland of the Germans”. Aryans only.

He bluntly claims that Germans are already a minority in schoolyards. The assembly in the Hessenhalle responds with a standing ovation and chants of “Hoh! Hoh! Hoh!” – formerly known as Sieg Heil!

Hohm then receives 90.4% support from delegates. In second place is Saxony’s Jan Richard Behr (also East German). He has relocated to West German Rhineland-Palatinate, leaving the AfD’s promised land – East Germany – behind.

Like his boss, Jean-Pascal Hohm, he too is an old JA cadre – from the AfD’s former youth organization deemed too radical even for the AfD. The new platoon – Generation Germany – is tasked with avoiding any overt neo-Nazi appearance. In short, the AfD has replaced an old organisation with a new one in the hope that the new version hides its neo-Nazi ideology more effectively. That is the plan, at least.

Meanwhile, Behr has visited Kubitschek – Germany’s foremost right-wing extremist demagogue – in Schnellroda for ideological training. He has been there repeatedly and, not to be overlooked, he too has contacts with the neo-fascist IB. He receives 89.24%.

Next in line is Adrian Maxhuni. He is also a long-standing fighter of the AfD JA, belonging to an “ethnic” network within the party. The euphemistic term “ethnic” is code for race – Rasse. Since 2022, he believes neither the JA nor the GG are radical enough.

Following neo-Nazi race ideology, he once advocated: “we should stop animal experiments and take refugees for it.” In other words, refugees should replace animals in scientific testing. Josef Mengele could hardly have phrased it better.

Maxhuni has also argued that there should be a “final solution for Muslims in Germany”. What we call today the Holocaust – the murder of millions – was misleadingly labelled by Hitler and the SS as “the Final Solution”. Because of such statements, Maxhuni continued as a regional JA-Gruppenführer.

Beyond that, Maxhuni has contacts with old NPD ideologists who conduct ideological training. Until the rise of the AfD, the NPD was Germany’s most prominent neo-Nazi party. With the AfD’s ascent, the NPD has largely vanished; its members – and many voters – have seamlessly migrated to the AfD. For all this, Maxhuni was rewarded with 81.09% support in Gießen.

Next came the Völkische (read: deeply racist) Matthias Helferich – internally known as “the friendly face of neo-Nazism”. The Völkisch candidate was elected with a clear lead: 78%.

When other right-wing extremists declared “we are intolerant and will remain intolerant!” he triggered ecstatic applause. After talk of knife-wielding “Muhammads”, the paranoia escalated: no state would save “us”; the German youth were on their own; an attack on one of them was an attack on all of them.

It was rounded off with Völkisch platitudes like “Germany remains the land of the Germans”. When the more moderate Martin Vincentz concluded his speech, he was criticised for being too liberal – even though he too had called for “remigration” (read: ethnic cleansing). It wasn’t enough. He was defeated.

The bottom line: the AfD has restructured its extreme right-wing youth organization, but the radical ideology remains the same as within the Junge Alternative – the AfD’s former organisation.

In Gießen, the AfD youth displayed its right-wing extremism openly and proudly. This does not harm the AfD in public polling – the opposite is true.

Finally, Kevin Dorow gave the most radically far-right speech, shouting: “We are not distancing ourselves” (implying from neo-Nazism). He praised far-right activists who harkened back to the original motto of the Hitler Youth (HJ): “Youth must be led by youth.”

Earlier, the right-wing extremist Björn Höcke had posted the HJ slogan on social media. He quickly deleted it after it emerged he had knowingly spread Nazi slogans. Höcke has done this before – it is his preferred method of spreading Nazi propaganda.

In Gießen, Dorow referred to his idol Höcke and shouted his name from the stage. As expected, there was roaring applause – reminiscent of the Sportpalast. It was neo-Nazism at its best. For referencing Hitler Youth, Kevin Dorow was immediately rewarded: he was elected with 88.6% support.

In short, Chrupy’s and Weidel’s youth marked the rebirth of a far-right combat legion. Its smoke-screen name fits smoothly into the party’s propaganda strategy. The lesbian Mini-Führer of the AfD has mastered many roles; in Gießen, Alice Weidel presented herself as a conservative stateswoman preaching Christian moderation.

Her perfect propaganda projection is to present the AfD as a haven of democracy, rule of law and civil rights. This is the message the Janus-faced Weidel aims to send – executed as professionally as possible.

Meanwhile, the predecessor organisation of Generation Germany – the Junge Alternative (JA, not HJ) – was dissolved by Weidel under pressure from the party’s top apparatchiks. The neo-fascist AfD no longer wanted the JA as an independent association, but integrated into the AfD. Now only AfD members may participate, except for very young members under 16.

Chrupy wants his new party youth to be “rebellious at times”, but: “we demand that they put themselves at the service of the party.”

Many of the 700 attendees in the hall are former JA members. Initially, they wanted to keep the old name. Weidel would not accept this. Thus, “Generation Germany” was founded.

Meanwhile, the AfD scores particularly well with under-25s. Among this group, the AfD recorded the strongest increase in the February 2025 election. A whopping 21% of 18-to-24-year-olds voted for the AfD – 14% more than in 2021.The formation of a new(ish) youth platoon became necessary because the formerly named “Young Alternative” (JA) had been dissolved at the beginning of the year after being classified as far-right extremist by Germany’s security authorities. It is hoped that renaming and reinventing young neo-Nazis will help them avoid being detected as neo-Nazis.

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