Police prepare for violence amid nationwide protests.
ERFURT, GERMANY — July 2026.
Germany deployed thousands of police officers in Erfurt as the Alternative for Germany held its federal congress under extraordinary security conditions. Authorities expected as many as 60,000 demonstrators to gather during the two-day event on July 4 and 5. An internal police assessment reportedly warned of a possible “apocalyptic scenario” if militant groups attempted to break through security cordons and approach the exhibition center. The scale of the operation reflected growing concern over political polarization, confrontation and the normalization of extreme rhetoric in Germany.
Police officials said most participants were expected to come from student organizations, civil society groups and established political movements with little experience of violent clashes. Security services nevertheless identified smaller groups considered willing to leave designated protest areas and confront officers around the venue. Authorities prepared for sit-ins, transport disruptions, attempts to block entrances and possible pressure on emergency access routes. The objective was to preserve the AfD’s legal right to hold its congress while protecting peaceful demonstrations against the party.
The nationwide activist coalition Widersetzen announced plans to delay the gathering through mass blockades and civil disobedience. Climate activist Luisa Neubauer was among the public figures expected to participate in the protests. Organizers said their aim was to obstruct access to the congress for as long as possible without abandoning the principle of collective resistance. Their strategy placed police between two protected democratic rights: political assembly inside the venue and public opposition outside it.
Several political parties supported the demonstrations, including the Greens, the Left Party in Thuringia and the Social Democratic Party. The timing carried additional symbolic weight because the AfD congress took place one hundred years after a Nazi Party gathering in nearby Weimar. Critics argued that the anniversary intensified concerns about the language, historical references and political direction of Germany’s expanding far-right movement. The AfD rejected comparisons with National Socialism and accused opponents of using history to delegitimize democratic competition.
Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier said police would guarantee freedom of assembly for both AfD delegates and peaceful protesters. He rejected claims by regional AfD leader Björn Höcke that the weekend could produce conditions resembling civil war. Höcke’s regional party organization has been classified by Thuringia’s domestic intelligence service as clearly right-wing extremist. That designation has made the state one of the central battlegrounds in Germany’s dispute over the boundaries between radical opposition and constitutional threat.
The congress confirmed Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla as the party’s national co-leaders without opposing candidates. Weidel received 81.3 percent of the vote, while Chrupalla secured 70.05 percent. Their reelection preserved continuity at the top of a party that has expanded electorally while facing internal pressure from more radical factions. The results also demonstrated that neither leader exercises complete control over the ideological struggle developing within the organization.
Several figures associated with the AfD’s harder right wing sought positions in the federal executive. Among them was Jean-Pascal Hohm, leader of Generation Germany, the party’s youth organization established in November 2025. Hohm belongs to the AfD branch in Brandenburg, which that state’s domestic intelligence service has classified as clearly right-wing extremist. His candidacy received support from Höcke and signaled an effort to strengthen the movement’s most confrontational wing inside the national leadership.
Other candidates included Dennis Hohloch, Hannes Gnauck and Stefan Möller, all connected with regional structures identified by security authorities as extremist or far-right. Their involvement transformed the congress into more than a routine leadership meeting. Delegates were effectively deciding how much institutional influence should be granted to figures linked with the party’s radical networks. That internal contest may shape the AfD’s future relationship with conservative voters, European partners and Germany’s constitutional institutions.
The Erfurt congress therefore became a test of several democratic limits at once. Police had to prevent violence without criminalizing peaceful dissent, while protesters sought to oppose the AfD without undermining the right of a legal party to assemble. The AfD, meanwhile, faced questions about whether its electoral growth would moderate the movement or provide greater influence to its most radical elements. Germany’s wider challenge is no longer simply whether the far right can gain votes, but whether democratic institutions can contain polarization without reproducing the instability they seek to prevent.
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