ALICE ELISABETH WEIDEL, born on this date, is a German politician who has been serving as co-chairwoman of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party alongside Tino Chrupalla since June 2022. Since October 2017, she has held the position of leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
Weidel became a member of the Bundestag (MdB) in the 2017 federal election, where she was the AfD’s lead candidate alongside Alexander Gauland. In the 2021 federal election, she once again served as their lead candidate, alongside Tino Chrupalla. From February 2020 to July 2022, Weidel held the position of chairwoman of the AfD state association in Baden-Württemberg. In 2024, she was selected as her party’s candidate for Chancellor in the upcoming 2025 German federal election.
Weidel was born in Gütersloh and grew up in Harsewinkel, where she graduated from a Christliches Jugenddorfwerk Deutschlands (CJD) Gymnasium in 1998. She studied economics and business administration at the University of Bayreuth and graduated as one of the best in the year in 2004. After receiving her undergraduate degree, Weidel went to work for Goldman Sachs Asset Management from July 2005 to June 2006 as an analyst in Frankfurt.
Weidel joined the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in October 2013. According to Weidel, she was first attracted to the party due to her opposition to the euro. She was elected to the federal executive committee of the AfD in June 2015. In April 2017, she was elected co-lead candidate of the party. She is the first lesbian to serve as a lead candidate of her party. She has been identified by the media as belonging to the more moderate conservative Alternative Mitte faction within the AfD.
The Switzerland-based property billionaire Henning Conle supported AfD. He donated a total of 132,000 euros by means of straw men for the 2017 federal election campaign of Alice Weidel. Conle disguised his donation from Switzerland in 18 tranches. The AfD had to pay the Bundestag a high fine for this donation, but Weidel and three other officials went unpunished. A German-wide record-setting donation of 2.35 million Euros to AfD by local Austrian FPÖ politician Gerhard Dingler in early 2025 has been identified as being linked to Conle. If substantiated, such donation would break both German and Austrian laws and would be heavily penalized.
Weidel has said she supports civil partnership for gay and lesbian couples, noting she is a lesbian herself and in a civil partnership with another woman. She combines this position with her negative attitude towards asylum in Germany and Islam.
Weidel said that she sees family policy as more liberal than her party: “Family is where children are.” Weidel has stated her opposition to discussion of sexuality prior to puberty saying that “I don’t want anyone with their gender idiocy or their early sexualization classes coming near my children.” She has also expressed her opposition to legalization of same-sex marriage, stating that she supports protection of the “traditional family” while also supporting “other lifestyles”.
Weidel is in a relationship with Sarah Bossard, a film producer who is originally from Sri Lanka. The pair lives with their two adopted children in Einsiedeln, Switzerland. Weidel works in Berlin and says her official residence is in her electoral district in Überlingen, Germany, allowing her to avoid Swiss taxation. In 2017 she declared that she primarily resides in Einsiedeln. She and her partner are in a civil union and have two adopted children. In terms of religion, Weidel identifies herself as an agnostic.
On her father’s side, Weidel’s family came from Neustadt and Leobschütz in Upper Silesia. Her grandfather Hans Weidel was a Nazi judge, appointed directly by Adolf Hitler