How AfD’s Alice Weidel went from German pariah to top opposition figure

Alice Weidel ‘does not exactly have the sociodemographic characteristics you’d expect from an AfD voter’. Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA

Alles für Deutschland, (“everything for Germany”) was once a Hitler-era rallying cry. It was more recently adopted by Björn Höcke, a high-ranking member of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland at party rallies, for which he was prosecuted.

Then in August last year the slogan popped up at events attended by Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, but in a subtly modified form – Alice für Deutschland. The party printed blue cardboard hearts bearing the slogan and distributed them to members, who held them up at rallies to show their approval.