The German Alternative ( or ) was a minor Neo-Nazi group set up in Germany by Michael Kühnen in 1989.
Ideology Its declared goal was the restoration of the German Reich and rejected the cession of German areas in Eastern Europe following World War II and all immigration to Germany, claiming that there were already too many foreigners in the country.Verfassungsschutzbericht 1990. Verfassungsschutz. ISSN 0177-0357.
History The group was a successor to the short-lived Nationale Sammlung, itself set up following Kühnen's removal from the Free German Workers' Party due to his homosexuality.Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens, p. 231 It was constituted as a legal political arm of the Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front (GdNF), Kühnen's more militant neo-Nazi organization.Hajo Funke, 'David Irving, Holocaust Denial, and his Connections to Right Wing Extremists and Neo-National Socialism (Neo-Nazism) in Germany' After its founding, it received members from the GdNF, Republicans and the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). The complete leadership of the NPD in Berlin and Brandenburg defected to the DA in 1991.Profil: Deutsche Alternative (DA). apabiz.de. Retrieved on 21 August 2007.
The group organized under the name Nationale Alternative (National Alternative) in the former East Germany, with Ingo Hasselbach as leader. This guise of the DA organized militia training camps in East Berlin and established close links with other groups and with international figures such as Gary Lauck. However, after around a year of intense activity, this arm of the DA fell apart.
After Kühnen's AIDS-related death in 1991, Frank Hübner became the organization's new chairman, while Rene Koswig assumed the role as deputy. Both hail from East Germany. This led about eighty members, primarily from the western part of the country, leaving the DA to start the Deutsches Hessen, Nationaler Block, Volkstreue Liste, and Deutscher Weg.
The group was banned in 1992 as were the Nationalist Front and National OffensiveC. T. Husbands, 'Militant Neo-Nazism in Germany', L. Cheles, R. Ferguson & M. Vaughan (eds.), The Far Right in Western & Eastern Europe, London: Longman, 1995, p. 337 following an arson attack on an asylum seekers refuge in Mölln, Schleswig-Holstein.Rushton, Reginald M.: Right-wing Extremism in the Federal Republic Of Germany 1973-1995 . Retrieved 21 August 2007. At the time, it had 340 members Seit 1992 verbotene Organisationen . Verfassungsschutz Baden-Württemberg. Retrieved 21 August 2007. and affiliate organizations in Rhineland-Palatinate, Brandenburg, Saxony, Berlin and Bremen. In Cottbus, it even had more members than the Social Democratic Party of Germany. The decree banning it lists three attacks on hostel containing refugees for which DA members were arrested for participating in.
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