A convoy of retro-looking Simson mopeds drives through the forests of Thuringia. The state was once part of communist-ruled East Germany.
The convoy is the central image of a campaign video for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Styled like a 1970s road movie, the video relies heavily on nostalgia. Even the soundtrack seems designed to evoke a lost era.
The two-wheeler rally is being led by Björn Höcke, one of the AfD’s most recognizable hardliners.
West German politicians sell eastern identity
Hocke was born and raised in West Germany. Yet he has built his political career in the East by presenting the AfD as a defender of East German identity and grievances.
The state branch of the AfD is classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization by Thuringia’s domestic intelligence agency. Hoke has been convicted twice of publicly using a banned Nazi slogan.
Now he and his party are making one of East Germany’s most famous cultural symbols – the Simson moped – part of their political message.
That campaign has transformed a beloved moped into something else entirely for a family.
samson heir fighting back
Dennis Baum, 82, is one of the heirs to the Simson Company. He traveled from New York to Germany this summer to talk about his family history and the legacy of the Simson name.
“The mission is to defend ourselves against the AfD’s use of the family name, the name Simson,” Baum told DW.
Baum is one of the five heirs of the Simson family. Although the trademark is owned by another company, the family still has a say when it comes to the brand.
His grandmother was from the Jewish family that founded the Simson company in 1856 in the town of Suhl in Thuringia. The company became one of Germany’s leading manufacturers of firearms and later vehicles before the Nazi regime forced the family to give up ownership in 1935.
After World War II, the factory continued to operate in the German Democratic Republic, as it was formerly called, producing mopeds that became one of the GDR’s most recognizable consumer brands.
The family’s concerns began when the Simson name surfaced as part of the AfD branding earlier this year.
“We became aware of the use of our name on T-shirts and posters with the Hawk name or the AfD name,” Baum said, re-watching the campaign film.
For Baum, the issue is not merely personal. It is rooted in the family history itself.
“Well, this is a far-right party based on intolerance, and particularly because they have clearly stated that they are anti-Semites and we are a Jewish family,” Baum said. “It definitely doesn’t fit.”
Their demand is simple. “The main thing for us is this: Get the Simson name out of politics, all politics,” Baum said.
Hoke, he said, “is a very difficult individual to deal with and is certainly someone we would not want our name associated with.”
A moped and the East-West divide of Germany
More than three decades after reunification, political, economic and cultural differences between East and West Germany have not gone away. Many East Germans feel at a loss and say that their experiences, achievements, and losses have been ignored or judged through a Western lens since the fall of communist East Germany.
The Simson moped was affordable, robust and easy to repair. Due to a special exemption, they were allowed to travel at speeds of up to 60 kilometers per hour (35 mph) and often served as an alternative to cars, which were in short supply for many people. The “Schwalbe” (Swallow) scooter became the most recognizable model.
The distinctive design became part of everyday life in the GDR, existing until reunification with the West in 1990.
“Young people in East Germany could get around on mopeds,” Ulrike Schulze, a historian who researches the Simson company, told DW. For decades, affection for Schwalbe was largely apolitical, Schulze said.
This is what the AfD has seized on, Schulz said. “The AfD takes exactly this apolitical thing and gives it a political charge,” Schultz said.
Part of a broader far-right strategy
Political analyst Johannes Hilje told DW that the AfD’s adoption of Simson is part of a broader culture war. For them, the moped offers something unusually valuable to the party: a ready symbol of East German youth culture rooted in regional pride and identity.
The fact that the brand has Jewish roots reflects the party’s critical attitude toward cultural symbols, he said.
“This is a strategy to hide the nativist and fundamentalist character of the party,” Hilje said.
This strategy is not unique to Germany. Across Europe, far-right parties are increasingly wrapping themselves in regional traditions, local symbols and cultural identity.
Throughout Germany, political parties have long appealed to regional identity. A 2026 study by political scientist Jan Philipp Thomaczek of the University of Potsdam shows how conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) and free voters in Bavaria often portray themselves as defenders of Bavarian traditions against political elites in Berlin or the European Union (EU).
Political scientist Hajo Funke said the AfD is moving in a different direction from many other European far-right parties.
“Unlike parties in neighboring countries such as Le Pen’s Rassemblement National or Meloni’s post-fascist party, they are not becoming more moderate or pragmatic, but becoming more radical,” Funke said, referring to far-right parties in France and Italy respectively. This makes familiar cultural symbols particularly useful to the AfD, he said, because it softens the edges of a more radical political message.
That’s why the controversy matters to Baum.
He believes that the AfD campaign is aimed not only at those who remember East Germany, but also at the younger generation, to inspire young people to associate regional pride with the AfD’s politics.
When asked what message he would like to convey to that generation, Baum answered without hesitation: “Beware of false friends.”
Edited by Reena Goldenberg