Meanwhile, far-left activists, professional political agitators, and NGOs funded by dark money attempted to restrict access to the event through a coordinated pressure campaign.

Local police estimate that around 15,000 far-left activists descended on Erfurt to block roads and prevent AfD members from reaching the convention area. However, as one news outlet pointed out:

AfD tricks Antifa. The motley crew of disheveled youths, chronic unemployed, students of babble studies, and NGO staffers sat on the street starting at 05:30 a.m. to block the AfD's arrival. But the AfD had already arrived an hour and a half earlier in a long convoy under police protection. And while the AfD delegates could leisurely have breakfast and prepare for the party congress that starts at 10 a.m., Antifa is squatting pointlessly on the street. With the AfD, you just get up earlier

The conference comes as AfD's growing confidence among the population becomes evident, with the party leading polls ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives. Recent surveys put AfD support at 29%, compared to about 22% for the CDU/CSU bloc.

Weidel and Chrupalla used their speeches to attack mainstream parties, blast globalists, and sharpen their anti-immigration message.

AfD became the second-largest party in last year's elections, with its influence growing amid mounting public frustration with liberals and their failed globalist policies, whether nation-killing open-border migration, de-growth climate policies, or other progressive policies that are ruining the West.