The Alternative for Germany (AfD) sets out its views on immigrants clearly in its program: “The AfD views the ideology of multiculturalism as a serious threat to social peace and to the continued existence of the nation as a cultural entity.”

And yet, multiculturalism seems to be a serious risk for the AFD itself: in recent months, more and more of excessive messages of law have been destined for the electorate of the many communities of German immigrants, with some success.

Born in Turkey, Ismet Var, 55, has lived in Germany since childhood, has been a German citizen since 1994, and an advocate of the far-right election for Germany (AFD) since its founding in 2013.

Var works as a force of delivery in the German capital, and its task directly affected through emerging fuel costs after the large -scale invasion of Russia of Ukraine in 2022. Now you cannot perceive why it “throws both effective “to the economy and the help of the army for Ukraine. His main concerns, he says, are that taxes are being lowered and that thin immigrants are being deported.

The latter is already: the most recent statistics show that the Center’s leftist government Olaf Scholz has greater deportations during the year. “Now! They are exulting people!” Var said in a coffee in the Kreuzberg International District in Berlin. “But they didn’t. ” He believes that he took the intervention of the AFD in the German political scene so that the government acts.

As an Alevite, he also feels that Germany has become too tolerant of what he calls “strict Muslims.” “I’ve got nothing against them when they pray at home, but when they do propaganda, then I’m against them,” he said.

Var has experienced racism as a new arrival in Germany in the 1970s: He recalls a janitor in his building, telling him that he and his circle of relatives would not be there if Hitler were still in power: “But that “didn’t bother. “

Anna Nguyen has also experienced plenty of racism in Germany. Born near Kassel in 1990 to Vietnamese refugees, she is now an AfD representative in the Hesse state parliament. But, she insists, it isn’t Germans who are racist towards her — it is mainly people she thinks are Arabs.

“During COVID, it was always people with an immigrant background, presumably Arabs, who shouted ‘corona, corona’ after me and my Chinese friend,” she said. “It’s true that on the internet I get flooded with racist comments — but from the left, even though they call themselves anti-racists.”

Nguyen insists that her party, meanwhile, is pulling away from the race and not strategically seeking electorates like her. “It’s not about the immigrant environment,” she says. It’s about the fact that all the other practical people in this country need to save you from this green ideological madness. It is: can I live a smart life? Is it safe? Do we have a secure supply of electricity?”

Immigrant history voters are a demographic truth in Germany: official statistics from 2023 show that about 12% of German electorate does not have Germans, about 7. 1 million people. Not later in 2016, about 40% of the electorate in the history of migrants voted for social democrats in the center-left (SPD) and 28% for the Christian Democratic Union in Central-Droit (CDU). But those loyalties seem to have eroded.

According to the German Research Center for Integration and Migration (Dezim), which published an examination on voting habits among migrants at the end of January, there is little difference between voting habits with or without immigration experience. Let’s put an end to the general election In 2017, 35% of German Turks voted for the SPD, while 0% voted for the Afd.

Jannes Jacobsen de Dezim, who co -written the next report, said AFD is more horny for other people from other origins. He also pointed out that these electorates are German citizens, and they themselves. “Therefore, it would not be a great wonder that these other people do not vote in a very alternative way for other people who have no history of immigrants,” he told DW.

In 2023, Robert Lambrou, also an Afd state parliamentarian in Hesse, founded an organisation named “with a background of migration to Germany” for supporters of AFD immigrants. The organization’s online page states that it has 137 members from more than 30 countries and that it is open to “those who profess their trust in German culture as a dominant culture and paintings for the non-stop lifestyles of the country as a cultural entity. “

“My understanding with AFD is that it makes no difference if you are of immigrant origin or not,” said Lambrou, 55, whose Greek father, told DW. “I don’t see the party as xenophobe, we need a practical practice. Migration policy. “

But that is hard to square with statements like that of AfD Bundestag member René Springer, who, in the wake of revelations early last year that AfD politicians were part of a meeting planning mass “remigration” of immigrants and non-white Germans, who wrote on X: “We will send foreigners back to their home countries. By the million. That isn’t a secret plan. That is a promise.”

Lambrou agreed that some statements are not useful if they are not founded well on explicit facts or nuances. “When we realize the statements through the members of the party that we do not believe they are well, then we review to seek the internal dialogue of the party,” he said.

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Nevertheless, there do appear to be more and more pro-AfD TikTok videos made by non-white people in the past few months.

Özgür Özvatan, CEO of the political consultancy Transformakers, and author of an upcoming book on the political impact of Germans of immigration background, said that the AfD has been actively seeking out the attention of immigrant voters for at least the last year — particularly people with Russian and Turkish roots — mainly because those communities are more likely to have voting rights. According to Germany’s official statistics, there are over 2.9 million people of Turkish background in Germany, of whom nearly 1.6 million have German citizenship. The post-Soviet diaspora, meanwhile, also runs into the millions, and includes several nationalities and ethnicities — including German. Many of these are also likely to feel attracted to the AfD’s pro-Russia stance on the Ukraine war.

Özvatan argues that this all part of the AfD’s larger strategy to expand its voter base. “Its potential voters in the non-immigrant landscape are of course finite,” he said. “They might have a potential vote-share of around 20-25% there — but if they want to get towards 30-35%, then they need to expand their portfolio, and that will mean creating content and promise policies for immigrant communities.”

“People who emigrated previously are not in favor of immigration,” Özvatan told DW. “They can be immigrants and occupy anti-immigrant positions. “

Nguyen insists that the immigrants electorate does not deter through racism and contradictions “because they know who is destined through this, it is illegal immigrants, in the specific ones since 2015. These are those who are criminals, and other people In terms of immigration, he suffers so much that anyone.

Özvatan thinks that many immigrant electorates are aware of racist statements, and even when they listen to manifest racism, they temporarily reject it as secondary to their main belief of AFD, which mean. “The main feeling is:” They are friendly to us, “he said,” and AFD tries to generate this feeling. “

Edited through Rina Goldenberg

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