Frauke Petry

Frauke Petry (; ; born 1 June 1975) is a German far-right politician who chaired the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party from July 2015 to September 2017. A chemist by training and with a professional background as a businesswoman, some political scientists described Petry as a representative of the national conservative wing of that party. and became leader in 2015, displacing the party's founder Bernd Lucke after an internal power struggle; Lucke subsequently left the party and said it has "fallen irretrievably into the wrong hands" after Petry's election. Petry left the party in turn after stating it had become "anarchical" and unable to provide a "credible platform".

Petry is noted for her anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views, for her calls to ban minarets, and for arguing that German police forces should "use firearms if necessary" to prevent illegal border-crossings in Europe. She led the Blue Party until its dissolution in late 2019.

Early life Petry was born on 1 June 1975 to a chemist and an engineer in Dresden in what was then East Germany. She lived in Schwarzheide, Brandenburg, near Saxony until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, after which her family moved to Bergkamen, in Westphalia. Petry took her first degree in chemistry at the University of Reading, England, in 1998, before attending the University of Göttingen, from where she gained a doctorate in 2004.

Political orientation

Petry was described as a representative of the national-conservative wing of her party. To the contrary, political scientist Cas Mudde described her as a representative of the far-right wing of her party. Petry describes herself as national-conservative and supporting policies of "national self-determinism". Der Spiegel reports that her electoral success on 4 July 2015, which gave her the reins of leadership in the AfD in preference to Bernd Lucke, one of the party's founders, was made possible by the national-conservative wing of the party. Lucke's wing did not have the majority. and has said that the majority within her AfD favors a liberal-conservative policy. Afterwards, Petry made several attempts to justify these statements.

Women in society Petry does not believe mandatory quotas are the right way to give opportunities to women, nor does she believe they improve the chances of women having more leadership positions. She believes quotas make women unsure of whether a promotion would be made on the basis of qualifications.

Regarding the issue of burqas, Petry believes it should not be compulsory for women to dress in such a manner. She has said that in schools "this sort of religious costume should not be worn". This came after she had frequently criticised Björn Höcke, one of the founders of AfD, due to a speech that he held in Dresden in which, referring to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, he stated that "we Germans are the only people in the world who have planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital", and suggested that Germans "need to make a 180 degree change in their politics of commemoration". The speech was widely criticized as antisemitic, among others by Jewish leaders in Germany. Petry backed attempts to expel Höcke from AfD as the party chairwoman, describing him as a "burden to the party", who accused her of splitting party ranks. Despite the internal strife, her party voted to allow her to run for a seat in the German parliament in the September 2017 elections.

One day after election night in which Petry was elected to the Bundestag by direct mandate, she left an AfD press conference saying that she won't join the party's parliamentary group in the Bundestag because the party became too "anarchical" and "could not offer a credible platform". Alice Weidel, the AfD's frontrunner, demanded her resignation from the party. She resigned from the party and all offices on 29 September 2017. She was subsequently charged with perjury for allegedly lying under oath about her former party's finances. She was convicted and sentenced to a fine of 6,000 euros. In 2020, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the conviction on the grounds that the law on perjury did not apply to the context in which she made the false statements.

On 12 October 2017, Petry announced that she would form a new party, called the Blue Party, which would provide a "reasonable conservative" agenda and seek to replicate the success of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria. In late 2019, that party was dissolved. The book was subsequently published as Requiem for the AfD in which Petry argued the party had become a "chaotic protest party" no longer interested in governing after she resigned as leader and accused politicians within the party of being blackmailed into accepting undeclared donations.

Personal life In 2007, Petry founded her own business, PURinvent, a Leipzig-based manufacturer of polyurethane tire fill products.

Petry separated from her husband, Sven Petry, a Lutheran pastor, Frauke Petry also revealed that "much more than just friendly feelings" had developed between her and Marcus Pretzell, a fellow AfD party member. At about the same time, it was announced that Sven Petry had joined the CDU. In December 2016, Petry married Pretzell, by then her domestic partner. Having had two further children with Pretzell, Petry now has six altogether and lives in Tautenhain, Saxony.