Alice Weidel cheered in Halle: And the day after tomorrow, power!

The AfD’s election campaign kick-off in the exhibition hall has already lasted more than two hours, with speeches, musical performances and films. Everything is staged towards this one big climax.

The main actress’s appearance is scheduled for 4:15 p.m. in the internal schedule. At 4:13 p.m. she is on stage: Alice Weidel, the chairwoman of the party and parliamentary group – and most recently also the candidate for chancellor.

The noise from thousands of throats deafens the ears. A mass of paper flags waves. “Alice! Alice!” chants boom. Weidel shouts with moist eyes: “I love you!”

And then suddenly Elon Musk’s face appears on the huge screens, shown live from the USA (the star reported). The AfD is the “best hope for Germany,” he says. And yes, it is okay to be proud of Germany.

Then he actually shouts: “The future of civilization depends on the elections!”

After her talk with Musk on his social channel X (“Hitler was a communist”), this is the next PR coup for Weidel. The US billionaire doesn’t know when to stop talking, but at some point he finds his way to the end.

“Bye!” shouts Weidel and beams. “People, you heard it, the Americans, the Republicans are making their country great again! And we Germans, we are making our homeland great again! Make Germany great again!”

Then the candidate speaks of the acts of violence in Aschaffenburg, Magdeburg, Mannheim, Solingen and Munich. “I tell you: it’s enough!” And now she’s back to the term that she rejected for a long time, but which she first proclaimed two weeks ago at the federal party conference in Riesa: “remigration.”

“I’ll say it again today and here,” says Weidel: “We need remigration in order to be able to live in safety!” The “reign of injustice” must end.

Weidel also sounds similar to Riesa. However, this time she sticks more closely to her speech manuscript and doesn’t resort to phrases like “windmills of shame.” This day should be perfect for the AfD.

He started at noon. Spring looks past the Saale, the sun is shining. The police are standing by at the Messe S-Bahn station. Grids separate those arriving.

“Links to the AfD event,” says an official friendly. “To the right, please, to the counter-meeting.” If he is aware of the involuntary irony, he doesn’t show it.

A police helicopter is circling, water cannons and clearance vehicles are at the ready. But the mood is peaceful. While the counter-demonstrators unroll a large banner with the inscription “AfD, you lousy piece of Germany,” the AfD supporters, all of whom had to register online beforehand, stand patiently in a 200-meter-long queue.

Maximilian Krah has positioned himself about halfway through the waiting line. The Saxon MEP, who resigned from the federal executive board after various scandals and was not accepted into the EU parliamentary group, now wants to enter the Bundestag.

“I’m the pre-stopper,” he calls happily. And the strategy works. People gather around him, he constantly has to be available for cell phone selfies, in the end there will probably be hundreds. The photos will spread quickly online, where Krah has a huge following.

After several controls and security checks, people enter a hall with drinks and food stands as well as a fan shop with all kinds of promotional items. From here we go into an even larger hall in which, according to the party, there are 4,000 chairs. They fill up quickly.

There are paper flags and blue cardboard hearts with the inscription “Chancellor of Hearts” on the chairs. There are also white baseball caps that say “Alice for Germany.” The reference to the SA slogan “Everything for Germany” is probably desirable – especially since here, in Halle an der Saale, of all places, the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke was condemned for chanting the slogan.

It starts shortly before 2 p.m. in the darkened hall. Only the large stage, which is completely blue, is illuminated. A highly professional choreography begins. Elaborately produced short films alternate with speeches or a video message from the soon-to-be FPÖ Chancellor Herbert Kickl. The loudspeaker system is booming. Speakers are announced like rock stars.

Migrants also speak, the AfD is cosmopolitan. Islam critic Laila Mirzo speaks about the danger of her former religion. The Lebanese-German director Imad Karim complains about the supposedly restricted freedom of expression and, to great applause: “the lying press.”

Everything is thought out down to the smallest detail, the schedule is adhered to almost to the minute. Alice Weidel can be seen again and again in the clips. At one point, when she talks about how gays and lesbians are persecuted in Islamic countries, she openly discusses her own homosexuality: That’s exactly why, she says, as a woman who raises children with a woman, she is against uncontrolled migration.

Then Weidel co-boss Tino Chrupalla speaks. “We will win on February 23rd!” he shouts. “Whoever votes for Friedrich Merz, chooses war!”, consciously based on the former KPD slogan: “Whoever votes for Hitler, chooses war!”

The mood is now heated. “Tino, Tino!” shouts ring out. Tomorrow, it seems certain in the exhibition hall, the election will be won. And the day after tomorrow the power!

Or? What is left out of the official speeches, but discussed by officials in the room, is the CDU’s short-term change in strategy. Is Friedrich Merz suddenly the disruptive force?

Until now, the Union candidate preferred to talk about the struggling economy rather than about migration. But after the violence in Aschaffenburg, he took a hard turn. As his first official act as Chancellor, he promised to permanently control the borders and prevent all illegal entry – including by people with a claim to protection.

Merz also announced that he would submit several motions for a vote in the Bundestag. He also wants to accept votes from the AfD: “We will bring them in, regardless of who agrees with them.”

This creates an ambivalent situation for the AfD. On the one hand, the AfD is being upgraded and further normalized. Weidel rejoiced accordingly at X: “The fire wall has fallen!” The CDU and CSU had accepted their offer to “vote together with the AfD on the fateful question of migration in the Bundestag”.

On the other hand, the CDU is tackling the AfD’s central election campaign issue more aggressively than ever before. This is probably why Chrupalla expressed more restraint than his co-chair. “The firewall won’t fall yet if the CDU and CSU copy our proposals from the last few years and ask for our approval,” he said.

But Weidel sticks to her line in Halle. Your message to Friedrich Merz reads: “Dear CDU, tear down the undemocratic firewalls.” The voters want “a blue-black coalition.” The ÖVP has learned the hard way in Austria “that they cannot ignore the will of the voters forever.”

At the end of the speech, the audience goes wild, flags are waved, and shouts of “Alice, I love you!” ring out. And the hall shouts in chorus: “East-East-East Germany!”

Halle is in Saxony-Anhalt. It has been almost nine years since the AfD received more than 20 percent in a state election here for the first time. She wants to achieve this success in the federal government on February 23rd.

But there are still four weeks left.