Role model for AfD? How the Identitarians helped the FPÖ in Austria

The “People’s Chancellor” is closer to his goal than ever before. Herbert Kickl could soon move into the Austrian Chancellery. There is only one small step left until the first “blue” head of government: the ÖVP has to change and break its promise not to form a coalition with Kickl’s right-wing extremist FPÖ. And she probably will. Whether through gritted teeth, whether out of “state political responsibility,” or out of zeal for power: Kickl won’t care about any of that. The chancellorship would not be taken away from him in a blue-black alliance.

What is currently happening in Austria is a dream for right-wing populists: the FPÖ is the winner of the National Council election, the other parties have disintegrated in failed coalition negotiations. ÖVP Chancellor Karl Nehammer has resigned. Politically, Vienna is in ruins. The FPÖ is now what it has always sworn to be: the only alternative to the supposedly “corrupt elites”, to the “mainstream”, to the established parties.

The AfD is likely to be watching very closely what is currently happening in the neighboring Alpine republic. The FPÖ is both a sister party and a role model for the Alternative for Germany. Both parties are closely interwoven in their ideology and networks. Above all through the Identitarian Movement (IB).

The relationship between the IB and the AfD is now at the same point as it was with the FPÖ a few years ago.In Germany, the AfD has tried to distance itself from the movement, which the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified as “certainly right-wing extremist,” through an incompatibility decision. The current party leadership around Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla emphasizes that they want nothing to do with the IB. Although it has been repeatedly revealed that the AfD youth organization “Junge Alternative” (JA) in particular maintains excellent contacts with the Identitarians.

The FPÖ took the same approach under its former party leader Heinz-Christian Strache. The then Vice Chancellor repeatedly broke away from the IB for himself and his party, even though he may have known that parts of the FPÖ and its youth organization were closely linked to the right-wing extremists – and still are today. When Strache stumbled across the “Ibiza affair” in 2019 and had to resign, Herbert Kickl took over and began to remove taboos from the IB and tie it more closely to the party. The dirty child image should go away. The organization, which appears not only in , but also in the reports for the protection of the constitution, is an “interesting project worth supporting,” said .

Since Kickl has been steering the fortunes of the FPÖ, the last inhibitions that might have existed when looking to the far right have fallen. Terms like “Fortress Austria” and “remigration” migrated from the vocabulary of the Identitarian Movement directly into that of the FPÖ.

The IB fulfills two tasks at the same time: It is a think tank and a storm troop in one – a source of ideas for the party and a pacesetter on the street. With their help, the FPÖ was able to further radicalize itself calmly and quietly. The IB takes over the noise and the outrage, the FPÖ takes over the radical objections – once the initial excitement has subsided. In terms of content, Kickl is no less extreme than the Identitarians, but as long as he is not the first to express extreme demands, he can present himself as a moderate statesman. A tactic that should now get him the Chancellery.

Kickl and his career could also give the AfD a further boost. The German Blues today appear to be a bit more radical than their Austrian sister – which is why they refuse to cooperate with them and, unlike the FPÖ, no party in their own country wants to get involved with them. But the network of frontline organizations like the IB and a party like the AfD also works in Germany. Words like “remigration” have also become common language here and last year in many places in Germany, young people shouted xenophobic slogans, allegedly as a joke.

In the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, the AfD was even defeated – of all states in which the party was the most extremistoccurs.

For the German right-wing populists, one of the many lessons from Austria is that radicalism can be a recipe for success. The Alpine republic may seem like a testing ground for the AfD, testing how far right-wing extremist politics can go without alienating voters. Although the Austrian population is still a lot more (national) conservative than the German one, it would have been unthinkable under Strache that the FPÖ would act as radically as it has in the past few months. But under Kickl, the party is increasingly dropping its bourgeois mask. Also because the head of the party is also its chief ideologue.

The success of the FPÖ is also a success of Kickl’s tactics to remove taboos and legitimize right-wing extremist, extra-parliamentary organizations such as the Identitarian Movement. Over the past few months, the AfD will have diligently taken notes on how and with what success the FPÖ worked with the IB. Who knows whether the firewall between AfD and IB will not be publicly torn down very soon. If not before the federal election, then perhaps shortly afterwards.