BERLIN, Leaked internal emails from Germany’s far-right AfD show party co-leader Alice Weidel privately condemned Björn Höcke, the party’s leader in Thuringia, for using racist arguments and Nazi-era vocabulary, and moved to have him expelled. Years later, she praised his leadership and said he was fit for a cabinet position.
The leak, comprising more than 420,000 emails and roughly 48,000 documents, was released by hackers this week. An anonymous spokesperson told Die Zeit the attack was not politically motivated but aimed at “transparency and public accountability.” The AfD confirmed the breach and condemned it as “an attack on the German party system and therefore on democracy itself.”
Emails from Weidel’s account between 2015 and 2017, examined by WELT, show her warning colleagues that the party’s proximity to the anti-Islam Pegida movement and the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party was alienating mainstream conservative voters. In October 2015, she wrote: “In the west we are losing the mainstream conservative electorate completely through our proximity to Pegida, and to the NPD in the east.”
After Höcke gave a speech contrasting a “life-affirming African expansionary type” with a “self-negating European placeholder type,” Weidel wrote to the party executive: “This is deeply problematic, because the reasoning here is racial. It is fundamentally wrong.” She also feared Höcke’s rhetoric would bring the AfD under scrutiny by Germany’s domestic intelligence service.
In January 2017, Höcke described Berlin’s Holocaust memorial as a “memorial of shame” and demanded a “180-degree turn in the politics of memory.” Weidel brought a motion to expel him, accusing him of using “vocabulary from Adolf Hitler” and endorsing the Nazi Führerprinzip. In an internal message, she urged colleagues: “Wake up, for once,” warning of the “explosive force of the double meanings” in his speech.
Yet as she sought the party’s lead candidacy for the 2017 federal election, Weidel blocked recording of her own expulsion motion in the minutes, arguing further controversy would harm the party. After Höcke acknowledged his speech was a mistake, Weidel welcomed his letter as a “positive signal” and called for an end to infighting. Weeks later, she secured the nomination. Asked if she would campaign alongside Höcke, she replied: “Yes, of course. We are two parts of one party.”
Today, Weidel no longer publicly criticises Höcke. In a 2025 interview, she said they “get along very well” and answered “Yes” when asked whether he was suitable for a federal cabinet position.
Asked by WELT to explain the contrast, Weidel declined to comment through a spokesperson. A spokesperson for Höcke did not respond to a request for comment.
In February 2025, Höcke called the 2017 expulsion proceedings “old news,” saying: “We got to know each other and came to appreciate each other. Alice Weidel was the right lead candidate and did a top job.”