Abstract
Since 2013, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has radically evolved to become the second most popular party in Germany. This dissertation examines how the party uses historically revisionist views of the past to challenge current norms in Germany’s memory landscape. This dissertation also explores the contexts in which the AfD evokes memory politics, analysing the party’s attitude towards the education system, election campaigns, and social media. This is to highlight the central role that memory plays in the party’s strategy. The manner in which the AfD promotes its view of history and the organisations that it cooperates with tests the boundaries of the state apparatus and garners attention from the Verfassungsschutz. This dissertation also highlights how the provocative use of memory brings more attention to the party’s views and acts as a promotional strategy.This dissertation has found that in all the AfD’s interactions with other institutions, the same framework of behaviour can be identified. The party regularly seeks to relativise the national socialist past, and the guilt associated with the Holocaust. This relativisation is partnered with the promotion of national pride or the idea of German wartime victimhood to shift the memory focus away from national guilt. The AfD evokes a populist “us versus them” dynamic with any institution that opposes this to promote the party as a revolutionary movement that will end the national focus on guilt. This framework allows the AfD to influence how the past is discussed while normalising views of German history that portray the national socialist past as left wing, while simultaneously reintroducing a far-right party into mainstream German political conversations.
| Date of Award | 20 Jan 2026 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Mark A Bright-Allinson (Supervisor) & Debbie M Pinfold (Supervisor) |
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