On the social media platform X, Candy Jacob posted an image from another era: A mother surrounded by three blond children, under the protective arm of a man, with a crucifix in the background. Her accompanying text states that the best way to combat the "decadence of the modern age" is to "get married, have lots of children" and "find God." On TikTok, the young woman with 14,000 followers exhibits her attachment to "tradition," snuggling in her boyfriend's arms at a political demonstration in Erfurt, East Germany, under the heading "Resistance binds us together."

Jacob is a member of the Thuringia branch of Junge Alternative, a youth organization with links to the AfD party (Alternative for Germany), and which is classified as a "certified right-wing extremist endeavor" by the intelligence services. The movement is one of the most ardent supporters of ultra-radical right-wing candidate Björn Höcke for minister-president of the Thuringia region, which holds parliamentary elections on September 1. The AfD, which has been polling with over 30% of the vote there, has campaigned in particular for an "increase in the birth rate of the native population" to counter immigration, as well as for the return of "individualized childcare for children under three."

Propaganda-driven ideal

This is one of the paradoxes of the German far right: With a strong presence in the east of the country, where it has capitalized on the frustrations stemming from reunification, it has promoted an image of women that was in vogue in West Germany in the 1950s. In the German Democratic Republic, the dominant model was the opposite: Women were encouraged to study, work, enter traditionally male occupations and entrust their children to nursery schools, which welcomed babies from the age of 3 months.

Granted, this model was driven by the propaganda of a dictatorship with clear economic interests. But images from the former East German society are still noted for showing independent women with rolled-up sleeves, wearing hard hats and working in factories or in scientific professions. Today, the wage gap between men and women in eastern Germany is a third of that in the West.

The anti-feminist movement of young AfD recruits has not been unanimously supported by members of the party, infamously led by a lesbian woman, Alice Weidel. "In the East, women were also backhoe and crane drivers! Why should they all suddenly want to take up cooking?" said Barbara Benkstein, 41, AfD member of the Bundestag for Saxony, by way of objection recently in the press.

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