Jean-Pascal Hohm takes a seat in the second-to-last row of the large hall in the Stahlpalast, where the AfD Brandenburg is holding its party conference on this early November weekend. Throughout the event, AfD members stop by to greet him; party bigwigs shake his hand and pat him on the shoulder. The men greeting him are wearing suits. Hohm, on the other hand, is dressed in a black Boss sweater. Later, he will also take the floor and jump into a heated discussion.

The 28-year-old has been a member of the AfD since 2014. That same year, he founded the Brandenburg chapter of the Junge Alternative (JA), which he chaired for several years and which was officially classified as a demonstrably right-wing extremist group in 2023. Since 2021 he has chaired the AfD in Cottbus, and since 2024 he has been a member of the state parliament. In spring, the AfD dissolved the JA. A reassessment by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution raised concern within the mother party that its youth wing, an officially registered association, could be banned.

Political beginnings: From the Left Party to the AfD

At the end of November, a new youth organization is set to be founded in Hesse, likely under the name “Generation Germany” — more closely tied to the AfD, easier to control, and harder to ban. Hohm is expected to lead it at the federal level. His trajectory exemplifies the party’s increasing radicalization over the years and the influence of the right-wing extremist Brandenburg state chapter.

In an interview with the Morgenpost, the Ludwigsfelde-born politician explains that he originally comes from an SPD household. A few days have passed since the party conference in Brandenburg. Hohm is sitting in a café in Berlin-Mitte. The media awaits him — he is in high demand these days.

Auch interessant

Stadtbild Debate: „As a Black Person with 0.9 Abitur, I Never Fit In“

When asked how he became politicized, he likes to recount the story of a pensioner who worked hard all his life and still has to collect deposit bottles. “At the same time, we were told that we were a rich country,” he says indignantly. “I was excited when fresh political forces emerged. As a young person, I followed the founding of the Pirate Party.” According to his own account, he once voted for the Left Party in a local election in Brandenburg.

Today, Hohm “strongly rejects” the Left Party. He attributes the pensioner collecting bottles to the federal government’s funding of foreign projects and to immigration. He does not mention other causes of rising old-age poverty, such as increasing living costs, demographic change, or gaps in employment history.

Hohm’s links to right-wing extremist networks

Hohm says that at 18 he organized protests against a planned refugee shelter in his hometown. During the pandemic, he appeared at demonstrations against Covid protection measures. There, “the close cooperation between the AfD, its organizational periphery, and the so-called citizens’ movements became visible,” as stated in the Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s report regarding its decision to categorize the AfD state chapter as a confirmed extremist effort. Hohm is described as a networking figure who maintains contacts with right-wing extremist groups such as “Zukunft Heimat.”

In 2016, Hohm participated in a sit-in in front of the CDU headquarters organized by the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement (IB). His proximity to the IB cost him his job as an employee of the AfD parliamentary group the following year. According to media reports, however, the connection to the AfD was never fully severed. He continued to be involved in election campaigns. It didn’t take long before Hohm returned. But in 2019, he again announced his withdrawal. The reason: a photo showing him in Italy next to a member of the neo-fascist movement “Casa Pound,” which venerates the fascist dictator Mussolini.

More articles from Berliner Morgenpost in English:

• New survey: Emigration – One in Five Considers Leaving Germany
• Morgenpost exclusive: Digitalization of Tax Offices – One Berlin District Is Falling Behind
• Tennis during blackout: Kai Wegner – Chronicle of a Political Disaster
• ‘Exception rather than rule’: CDU and CSU Politicians Question Dual Citizenship
• Berlin 2026: Changes in construction, rents, schools, and sport

Hohm advocates an ethnocultural concept of “the people,” a central idea of the New Right, according to which a population is bound together by language, culture, ancestry, and other criteria. According to the Federal Constitutional Court, this concept is incompatible with human dignity. “For me, there is also naturally an ethnocultural German people that goes beyond the citizenry of the Federal Republic. To me, someone of German descent living in Romania is still German, even if they don’t have a German passport,” he says in the interview. He claims not to distinguish between German citizens who may have a migration background and people of German descent. Still: “Of course it is my goal that ethnocultural Germans remain the majority within the citizenry.”

“Generation Germany”: The AfD‘s training grounds

Jean-Pascal Hohm is friendly and joking. He appears self-confident, knowing exactly what he can and cannot say. He wants an AfD youth that follows his example. Rhetorical training, an understanding of parliamentarism, “substantive firmness” — one could also call it ideological conviction; the new youth wing is to become a training ground for new leaders. A youth that is rebellious but also “aware of its responsibility for the overall party,” as Hohm wrote on X in September.

In the future, actions are to be coordinated with the party leadership, with communication strategies planned for the following day. Members who call for ghettos for migrants and Jews, as revealed by an RTL investigation, could face sanctions and, if necessary, expulsion.

But where is Hohm’s red line? Contacts with the IB, which appears on the AfD’s incompatibility list and once caused him difficulties? “The incompatibility list determines how people who were once active there have their applications treated differently in the admission process,” Hohm explains. “I believe the incompatibility list should be adjusted, although I won’t passionately advocate for that now.”

“I don’t believe in seeing a Reichsadler in every eagle” — Jean-Pascal Hohm

He nonetheless draws a clear line: “Anything that moves toward conspiracy theories, such as chemtrails or the Reichsbürger movement,” says Hohm — who, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, promotes the antisemitic conspiracy theory of a “great population replacement” and calls for resistance. He declines to comment on AfD politician Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who was imprisoned in 2022 for allegedly being part of a Reichsbürger group and plotting a coup: “I don’t know the details of the case files.”

Auch interessant

Merz and the „Cityscape“: How Safe Are Women in Germany?

Any positive reference to National Socialism, he insists, is also a no-go. Critics, however, see such a reference in a proposed logo for the new AfD youth wing. “I don’t think every eagle needs to be seen as a Reichsadler,” Hohm counters. Still, he emphasizes: “There will be no such logo with me.” Why not? Because it would be unsuitable for public relations, says the trained media professional.

A gradual generational shift in the AfD?

“Hohm and the AfD fit together like a glove,” says right-wing extremism researcher Jan Riebe of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in an interview with the Morgenpost. Hohm, who comes from the “unpleasant part of the Cottbus football scene” and used to spend more time on the streets, is now more disciplined — and the AfD has become even more radical. A mutual convergence. “He knows how to avoid alienating both the right-wing extremist milieu and the party leadership,” says Riebe. “He is a unifying figure.”

Hohm belongs to the first AfD generation to have spent most of their political careers within the party – a generation that has now entered parliament. “A gradual generational change is possible,” the researcher says. With Brandenburg politicians Dennis Hohloch and Hannes Gnauck, Hohm has powerful allies on the AfD’s federal executive board — people he has known since his JA days.

Whether the designated head of the new AfD youth wing will succeed in uniting and pacifying all factions remains to be seen, says Riebe. It is also unclear whether he will manage to bring them in line with the party. At the Brandenburg AfD party conference, Hohm took the microphone when an amendment to the state statutes was discussed — as desired by the state leadership. In the end, however, his words had no effect: the motion failed to secure the required two-thirds majority.

This article was originally written and published on the 13th of November in German. It was translated in English with the use of Artificial Intelligence.