Swiss campaign donations: leaked emails challenge Alice Weidel’s account

AfD leader Alice Weidel is facing renewed scrutiny over illegal campaign donations from Switzerland. Emails in a data leak published a few days ago raised fresh questions on 23 October about how early, and how closely, she was involved in financing her 2017 German parliamentary election campaign. A total of €132,000 reached her local party branch’s account near Lake Constance. Weidel stands by her account; the authenticity of all the leaked documents has not been confirmed.

The central issue is a possible contradiction. When the payments became public in 2018, Weidel said she had learnt of them only weeks after they arrived and had been surprised. “I was not involved in the day-to-day business of campaign financing,” she said. Messages bearing her sender details suggest she was discussing expected donations and their use before the transfers began.

Donations expected for an online campaign

A July 2017 email to two trusted colleagues in the local branch states: “I have been promised donations with which I need to fund my social media campaign.” A party colleague was to check the account twice a week for incoming donations. It adds: “A brief written confirmation of the receipts would suffice. Then we know how much we can spend.”

Another message that month describes how a social media manager would use donations intended for Weidel, held in the branch’s account, for Facebook. The two colleagues were to set up a separate campaign account, to which Weidel would have personal access.

Four days after the email announcing expected donations, transfers from Switzerland began. Eighteen payments totalling €132,000 arrived with the reference “Campaign donation Alice Weidel Social Media”. They were the only substantial receipts for her parliamentary campaign in the branch’s accounts, and the only ones explicitly earmarked for social media. Some of the money paid for a social media manager’s work.

The timing and matching purpose raise questions. Neither, however, establishes that Weidel knew where the money came from or which specific payments were about to arrive.

Weidel denies any contradiction

Weidel’s spokesman says she is not revising any of her statements about the donations affair in the Bodenseekreis local branch. She had held numerous conversations with potential supporters, which was also why the sub-account had been opened.

“Ms Weidel neither expected specific sums nor was she certain that particular individuals would actually donate,” the statement says. She had not expected the payments from Switzerland in question.

An important distinction therefore remains contested: expecting donations in general is not the same as knowing about a particular illegal transfer. The emails nevertheless suggest more active involvement in campaign financing than her earlier public explanation implied. They do not explicitly identify the anticipated donations as those from Switzerland.

The stakes were high for Weidel in 2017. She had unexpectedly been chosen alongside Alexander Gauland as a lead candidate for the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament. The payments subsequently placed her under considerable pressure to explain herself at an early stage of her rise.

Swiss money and a substantial penalty

The Swiss connection is central to the case. The transfers initially appeared to be donations from a Swiss pharmaceutical company. Swiss property millionaire Henning Conle junior was later identified as the actual donor. Split into instalments and channelled through a frontman, the payments came from a country outside the EU. They proved to be an illegal political donation.

For readers in Switzerland, the case illustrates why cross-border campaign funding involves more than the name visible on a bank transfer. Who ultimately provides the money, and whether the recipient party is allowed to accept it, also matter. Here, the legal consequences fell on the German recipient party.

The AfD had to pay almost €400,000 to the Bundestag administration for accepting the donation and returning it late. The party did not hold Weidel personally liable because no fault on her part could be established. New questions about her role could therefore also carry weight within the party.

Criminal case closed, leaked data under scrutiny

Prosecutors in Konstanz closed the criminal investigation into Weidel and other suspects from her local branch in September 2021 for lack of evidence. They could not establish an agreement with Conle over the illegal flow of money. The newly emerged emails do not prove such an agreement either.

In principle, new evidence can allow a discontinued investigation to be reopened. Whether these messages could be sufficient remains unclear. Any potential offences are also likely to be time-barred by now, so renewed criminal scrutiny is by no means assured.

The documents’ origins present another unresolved issue. The cache of more than 400,000 emails and party documents came from a hacking attack in September. The AfD has acknowledged that data was taken, but has not confirmed the authenticity of every document. It is examining what happened and has filed a criminal complaint.

Whether the stolen material could be admitted in proceedings is also unclear. The distinction between the legal and political questions remains crucial: the emails do not establish an arrangement over the illegal donations, but they raise questions about Weidel’s involvement in campaign finances. Politically, the issue is how her earlier explanation can be reconciled with the messages now visible.