Weidel & Wagenknecht

What makes the two radical troublemakers tick

Alice Weidel dreams of becoming chancellor; the AfD leader wants to govern by 2029 at the latest. Sahra Wagenknecht is fighting to enter the German Bundestag with her BSW.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/EPA)

AfD leader Alice Weidel is Germany's most controversial political figure. In the federal elections on February 23, she will become the country's most successful far-right politician. Left-wing icon Sahra Wagenknecht, on the other hand, is fighting for political survival with her own party. Krone+ has analyzed what unites the radical troublemakers and what divides them.

Alice Weidel is an enigma, a walking contradiction. She dresses elegantly and bourgeoisly, but her rhetoric often descends to the level of drooling beer tents. As fiercely as she lashes out at "those up there", she reacts to criticism with a thin skin. She has been living in a same-sex partnership with a woman from Sri Lanka for years, yet she heads a party that praises an arch-conservative image of the family, seeks to close ranks with right-wing extremists and fantasizes about mass deportations. A balancing act between opportunism and ideology.