Factsheet: Alice Weidel

IMPACT: Alice Weidel is the co-chairwoman of the Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD), a far-right political party in Germany and the first far-right nationalist party to enter the German parliament since World War II. Under the leadership of Weidel, the party has become the second strongest force following the national elections in February 2025. Weidel has a long history of anti-Muslim statements and support for discriminatory policies targeting Muslims. She argues that Islam is incompatible with the German constitution and European values, and is also connected to several anti-Muslim actors.

Alice Weidel is a German politician with a degree in economics and business administration. She worked for Goldman Sachs Asset Management from 2005 to 2006, and in the late 2000s worked at the Bank of China. She did her PhD with financial support from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a political party foundation close to the Christian Democratic Union.

Journalists often depict Alice Weidel as a contradictory person, noting that she is a German Lesbian woman, who speaks Chinese, is a former Goldman Sachs analyst who lives with a woman of Sri Lankan origin in Switzerland while advocating for the nuclear family model and against immigration. As a February 2025 piece in the Indian Express stated, Weidel has used LGBT+ rights as a case “to expel Muslim immigrants from the country, over their perceived opposition to LGBT+ people.” In an interview in 2017, she said: “It is intolerable that there are no-go areas for homosexuals, it is unacceptable that law-abiding citizens have to be afraid in Germany just because of their sexual orientation,” arguing that “the only great danger that really threatens us … is Islamization.”

In January 2025, The Telegraph wrote that “Weidel’s own grandfather, Hans Weidel, was discovered last year to have been a high-ranking Nazi judge responsible for prosecuting enemies of the regime and appointed personally by Hitler, though she denies having had any knowledge of this.”

In May 2016, Weidel canceled a meeting with representatives of the Zentralrat der Muslime, a Muslim umbrella organization in Germany following an invitation that was accepted by the then-party leaders of the AfD. For Weidel, it was unacceptable that Ayman Mazyek, whom she called “a self-appointed representative of the Muslims,” had compared the AfD to the Nazi party.

In October 2016, Weidel published a press release against the Open Mosque Day in Berlin, where, according to her the German secret service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, said that mosques under the influence of Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood participated. She said: “It is quite astonishing that we allow extremists from the Islamic scene to carry out incitement and hate propaganda against Western society and our state undisturbed before our eyes, without them being stopped. But it is even more unspeakable that these radical Islamic mosques are allowed to promote themselves openly and unabashedly during an open mosque day on the Day of German Unity.”

Following Frauke Petry, Alice Weidel became co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) parliamentary group in the Bundestag in 2017. Since June 2022, she has been co-chairwoman of the AfD.

In May 2017, Weidel advocated for a hijab-ban. In a May 2017 interview with the German Tagesspiegel she said: “Headscarves should be banned from public spaces and the streets. That should definitely be laid down in law. I am in favor of a complete ban on the niqab and burqa – everywhere. Wearing them should be punishable by a heavy fine. I mean that very seriously. Men and women do not have equal rights in Islam and the headscarf is an absolutely sexist symbol of this. And I don’t feel like discussing it all the time. Because the headscarf does not belong to Germany… Legislators must fundamentally ask themselves what the guiding culture is supposed to be here. The headscarf flaunts the apartheid of men and women.” She reiterated her statement in a May 2017 post on Twitter.

Ahead of the national election campaign in 2017, the German news media Deutsche Welle reported that “far-right populists have gone over to a strategy of alarmist Islamophobia in an attempt to lure more voters to the polls.” The piece used Weidel and her rhetoric as an example, noting that she speaks about  violent crime among Muslim migrants, claiming that it had resulted in lawless “no-go areas” that lead to the “erosion of law and order” throughout Germany and calling for a host of draconian punitive responses. These ideas were again disseminated in the election campaign of 2024. In July 2024, infomigrants published a fact check, where they said that Weidel’s statements “were also consistent with the conspiracy theory promoted by the party that white Europeans are being replaced with migrants, in particular, with Muslims.” This conspiracy theory is known as the “great replacement” and has gained popularity in the past few years.

After becoming elected to the national parliament in October 2017, Alice Weidel argued that Muslims can only have a fundamental right to practice their religion if they renounce Sharia law beforehand. Islamic law is “not compatible with the Basic Law,” she said on ZDF, further arguing that “Islamic associations should be required by the state to swear an oath on our Basic Law, for example.” In November 2017, Weidel commented on her party comrade’s statements on Islam saying: “Is Islam a religion that accepts the separation of state and religion and can be harmonized with our constitution? Mr. Glaser denounces this. Me too.” She further elaborated in an interview with Die Welt in November 2017: “According to Glaser, Islam is a political system that is neither compatible with our constitution nor with European secularization. Glaser is absolutely right about that. We must therefore question what is going on here in the middle of Germany under the guise of religious freedom. Furthermore, Glaser has always emphasized that we are in favour of religious freedom. Every individual should be able to live out this freedom in Germany.”

Following New Year’s Eve in January 2018, Beatrix von Storch, the then-deputy leader of the AfD, and Weidel were both investigated by law enforcement after posting anti-Muslim messages online. Beatrix von Storch accused Cologne police of appeasing “barbaric, gang-raping Muslim hordes of men” after they [Cologne police] tweeted a new year message in Arabic. Weidel posted on Facebook that authorities were submitting to “imported, marauding, groping, abusive, knife-stabbing migrant mobs.” A January 2018 piece in The Times of Israel reported on the matter, writing: “Far-right party members post Nazi-era propaganda, slam ‘gang-raping’ Muslims and ‘marauding, groping migrant mobs’ after months of post-election calm.”

Following the publication of a book by the renowned publishing house Ravensburger, where the call to prayer for Muslims is portrayed, Weidel engaged in fearmongering in a February 2018 post on Twitter, asking “Is this interactive learning book from Ravensburger suitable for children aged 4 and over? Or is Islam now conquering our children’s rooms?”

In March 2018, Steve Bannon, former chief strategist during the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, met with Weidel in Zurich, Switzerland. They discussed political strategies and alternative media channels. AfD also invited Bannon in May 2019 to speak at the “Conference for a free media” event in Berlin for right-wing journalists and bloggers.

In March 2018, Weidel posted on Twitter: “It is not we who have to learn to deal with Islam, it is not we who have to lift Islam onto the ground of the Basic Law, but Islam has to adapt to us in full. And this must be enforced with the full force of the law!”

On May 16, 2018, Weidel said during a budget debate in the lower house of the German parliament that “Muslim immigrants ‘won’t secure our well-being.” She also referred to refugees and asylum-seekers in the Bundestag as “knife-wielding men on welfare” and “headscarf girls,” for which she was publicly reprimanded by the then parliamentary president, Wolfgang Schäuble. When asked about her words, Weidel justified in an interview with Switzerland’s Neue Zürcher Zeitung: “Polarization is a stylistic device to spark debates,” telling the newspaper that the term “headscarf girl” draws attention to the fact that Germany has a problem with conservative Islam, which is incompatible with the country’s Basic Law. The Christian-Democratic MP Markus Grübel (CDU) blamed Weidel, stating that her “negative statements about Islam promote attacks on Muslims.”

In December 2018, Weidel claimed that “Islam is not compatible with the German basic law.”

In April 2019, Anadolu Agency reported that Weidel “speculated on Twitter that the Notre Dame fire could be an attack targeting Christians, although French authorities ruled out arson or any terror-related motive. Weidel claimed that in February alone 47 attacks were recorded in France that targeted Christians and their churches.”

In May 2019, Weidel called social-democratic Justice Minister Katarina Barley a “lobbyist for radical Islamists” as she pushed against a bill from the Ministry of Interior to ban citizenship naturalization for men engaged in polygamy. Weidel said during a parliamentary debate: “The constitutional minister of all people is rolling out the red carpet for Muslims with multiple wives to gain citizenship, even though polygamy is clearly prohibited in the penal code. This is a tangible scandal and further proof of how far the SPD has already distanced itself from the reality of life for law-abiding citizens on its path to political insignificance. Katarina Barley is a repeat offender. She has already fought tooth and nail against the proposal to revoke the German citizenship of Islamic terrorists who have joined the IS. By attempting to legalize Muslim polygamous marriages, which are often practiced in secret by exploiting the German welfare state, through the back door and to give them the accolade of being eligible for naturalization, she is in fact acting as a lobbyist for radical Islamic fundamentalists. Barley is misusing her office to support forces that aim to undermine our legal system and Islamize our society. In doing so, she is not only failing as Minister of Justice, who is particularly committed to protecting the constitutional order, she is also disregarding elementary women’s rights and stabbing those Muslim women in particular in the back who want to free themselves from the oppression of archaic and barbaric Islamic customs and regulations. Obviously, Ms. Barley is looking for the SPD’s future electorate in the Islamic parallel and counter-societies and no longer in the ranks of law-abiding workers and taxpayers, who are already turning their backs on her in droves. Anyone who votes for the SPD in the European elections must know that they are sending an Islam lobbyist to the European Parliament as their lead candidate, with whom the creeping Islamization of living conditions will be further advanced.”

Following a deadly attack in December 2024, perpetrated by anti-Islam online activist Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, who also showed sympathy for the AfD, the AfD did not comment on his pro-AfD posts. Rather, Weidel decried those who “have contempt for our society, reject our values and culture, hate our homeland, which offers them protection” and falsely claimed that the AfD-supporting ex-Muslim perpetrator was an “Islamic extremist.” The party also held a rally in Magdeburg, where the attack took place, and used it for its anti-immigrant stance. Weidel spoke at her party’s rally and called for change “so we can finally live once again in security,” with the crowd reported to be responding with calls of “deport them.” In a post on X, Weidel said the government’s discussion of new security laws following the attack “must not distract from the fact that Magdeburg would not have been possible without uncontrolled immigration. The state must protect its citizens through a restrictive migration policy and consistent deportations!”

In February 2025, Weidel posted on X discussing pro-Palestine protests in the country. She claimed that: “It is the imported Muslim anti-Semitism that is making its way through the German streets. It is the hatred against those who are different.”

In December 2024, Elon Musk tweeted ahead of the national elections in Germany: “Only the AfD can save Germany.” This endorsement came leading up to the upcoming German elections and was followed by a livestream with AfD leader Alice Weidel. There, she claimed that “Jews in Germany are exposed to Muslim crimes.”

In 2024, Weidel became the first candidate for chancellor of the AfD for the 2025 national elections. The AfD more than doubled its previous result and came in second with 20.8 percent, representing 152 MP’s including 90 new faces. She was congratulated by various leaders of far-right political parties including the Austrian leader Herbert Kickl, the Spanish leader of VOX, Santi Abascal, the Dutch leader Geert Wilders, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, and DOGE’s Elon Musk.

According to Salih Yilmaz, the former head of the nongovernmental European Turkish organization Union of International Democrats (UID), “the AfD’s rhetoric is mostly hostility toward the Muslim segment, the Turks.”