Frauke Petry

Frauke Petry (German: [ˈfʁaʊkə ˈpeːtʁiː]; née Marquardt; 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.

Petry had formerly served as one of three party spokespersons from 2013 to 2015, 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. She was supported by a scholarship of the Studienstiftung.