Jean-Pascal Hohm is young and well-groomed: a clean-shaven neck, a side part, neat clothes and a friendly demeanor. When he takes the stage at the Brandenburg state parliament, the 28-year-old lawmaker usually wears a suit and tie.
Hohm is far from being a household name across Germany, but that may soon change. He is to lead the new youth organization of the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), which is to be founded on November 29 and 30 in the city of Giessen in the central state of Hesse.
Before the event, he gave an interview to a right-wing media outlet Young Freedom TVWhere he outlined the objectives of the organization: “We want to be a training ground for future leaders of the party,” Hohm said. “We want to develop office-bearers, elected representatives and hopefully also future members of the government,” Hohm added, pointing out that the AfD youth organization plays an important role in paving the way for the party to power.
AfD dreams of absolute majority
Five important regional elections will be held in Germany in 2026. The AfD has been leading in the polls for months. It has become the strongest party in East Germany. Saxony-Anhalt is polling at 40%, indicating it may be able to form a government even without a coalition partner after the September election.
On its way to power, the AfD decided to disband its former youth organization, Jung Alternative (Young Alternative), in early 2025. Its members made headlines with extremist statements and were often embroiled in scandals, creating headaches for the party leadership. JU was formally a union with no party affiliation. In fact, party membership in the AfD was not even a prerequisite for membership in JU, so the party had no way of sanctioning it as undesirable behavior.
JU was a target of German security authorities, who classified it as a “confirmed far-right extremist” due to its close ties to anti-constitutional organizations such as the Identitarian Movement and suspected right-wing terrorist groups known as “Saxon separatists”. Legal and political analysts saw JU on the verge of being banned as unconstitutional, which would have affected the AfD as a whole. German security officials have collected evidence showing that the AfD acts against the core principles of the German constitution: the party’s campaigns against Muslims and immigrants violate the principle of equality enshrined in the Basic Law. Critics have been calling for a ban on the AfD for years. If the party’s youth organization had been banned, it would have helped their cause.
The AfD has vehemently rejected such allegations for years. “The AfD is trying very hard to counter this classification as right-wing extremist and ridicule the whole idea,” Anna-Sophie Heinze, a political scientist at the University of Trier, told DW. “But at the same time, he also fears the possible consequences.”
The restructuring of the party’s youth wing thus appears to be primarily a strategic move: under the umbrella of the parent party, the new group can hope to receive better funding and professional support to engage, for example, in a social media campaign ahead of next year’s elections.
Will the new youth organization remain far-right?
The important question is how much far-right extremism will there be in the newly established youth organization?
“I don’t think the new youth organization will have any links to the identitarian movement or the far-right front,” says political scientist Anna-Sophie Heinze.
For example, Jean-Pascal Hohm has a history of close ties to far-right and anti-constitutional associations, one of which he even completed an internship at. In October 2018, he attended a meeting of neo-fascists in Italy. Their Brandenburg AfD chapter is considered one of the most radical nationwide. Individual members have openly challenged the German constitution, for example, by questioning whether it is legal for immigrants to obtain German citizenship.
Hohm’s response to such allegations leaves much room for interpretation. In an interview with the right-wing newspaper Junge Freiheit he said: “I am convinced that the platform that the AfD promotes, and the platform that our youth organization will promote, is firmly based on the Basic Law.” Critics wonder how to interpret this: does the party itself stand on the foundation of the Basic Law? Or is it just a written platform as per the words of the Constitution?
“Generation Germany” is the name Hohm and his colleagues want to give the new youth organization. This will be voted on by the members of the weekend conference. Promoting mass deportations from Germany is central to the proposed political platform. To avoid alienating voters, AfD politicians usually use the euphemism of “emigration” rather than explicitly saying “deportation”.
This article was originally written in German.
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