AfD – the alternative for whom? OSW COMMENTARY NUMBER 231 | 10.02.2017

When in 2013 a group of professors of economics founded Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland – AfD) it seemed that the name of the new grouping was exaggerated. Taking into account its slogans and its leaders, the AfD could at that time be an alternative for disenchanted voters of the CDU/CSU and the FDP alone. The party’s ‘founding fathers’, among whom there was a large group of former CDU members, did not conceal the fact that their ambitions were not particularly far-reaching. Their basic goal was to influence the CDU so that it would return to its former conservative values