AfD Uses Simson Moped Symbolism in Campaign, Sparking Family Backlash

A convoy of retro-looking Simson mopeds roars through the forests of Thuringia. The state was once part of Communist-ruled East Germany.

The motorcade is the central image of a campaign video for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Styled like a 1970s road movie, the video leans heavily on nostalgia. Even the soundtrack seems designed to evoke a lost era.

Leading the two-wheeler rally is Björn Höcke, one of the AfD's most recognizable hard-liners.

West German politician sells Eastern identity

Höcke was born and raised in West Germany. Yet he has built his political career in the east by presenting the AfD as a defender of East German identity and grievance.

The state branch of the AfD has been classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization by Thuringia's domestic intelligence agency. Höcke has twice been convicted for publicly using a banned Nazi slogan.

Now he and his party are turning one of East Germany's best-known cultural symbols — the Simson moped — into part of their political message.

That campaign has transformed a beloved moped into something else entirely for one family.

The Simson heir is fighting back

Dennis Baum, 82, is one of the heirs of the Simson company. He traveled from New York to Germany this summer, to speak about his family's history and the legacy of the Simson name.

"The mission is to defend ourselves against the use of the family name, the Simson name, by the AfD," Baum told DW.

Baum is one of five heirs to the Simson family. Although the trademark is held by another company, the family still gets to have a say when it comes to the brand itself.

His grandmother belonged to the Jewish family that founded the Simson company in the town of Suhl, in Thuringia, in 1856. The company grew into one of Germany's leading manufacturers of firearms and later vehicles before the Nazi regime forced the family to relinquish ownership in 1935.

After World War II, the factory continued operating in the German Democratic Republic, as the East was called, producing the mopeds that would become one of the GDR's most recognizable consumer brands.

The family's concern began when the Simson name appeared as part of AfD branding earlier this year.

"We found out about the use of our name on T-shirts and posters with the Höcke name or with the AfD name," Baum said as he rewatched the campaign film.

For Baum, the issue is not only personal. It is rooted in the history of the family itself.

"Well, it's a far-right party with the premise of intolerance, and particularly because they have stated quite clearly that they are antisemitic and we are a Jewish family," Baum said. "That certainly doesn't fit."

His demand is simple. "The bottom line for us is: Get the Simson name out of politics, all politics," Baum said.

Höcke, he said, is "a very difficult person to deal with, and certainly somebody with whom we wouldn't want to associate our name."

A moped and Germany's East-West divide

Over three decades after reunification, political, economic and cultural differences between eastern and western Germany have not disappeared. Many eastern Germans continue to feel at a disadvantage and say that their experiences, achievements and losses after the collapse of communist East Germany have been overlooked or judged through a western lens.

The Simson moped was affordable, sturdy and easy to repair. Thanks to a special exemption, they were allowed to travel at 60 kilometers per hour (35 mph) and often served as a substitute for cars, which were in short supply for many people. The "Schwalbe" (swallow) scooter became the most recognizable model.

The distinctive design became part of everyday life in the GDR, which existed until reunification with the West in 1990.

"In East Germany, young people could move around freely on the moped," Ulrike Schulz, a historian who has researched the Simson company, told DW. For decades, Schulz said, that affection for the Schwalbe was largely unpolitical.

That, Schulz said, is precisely what the AfD has seized on. "The AfD takes precisely this unpolitical thing and gives it a political charge," Schulz said.

Part of a wider far-right strategy

Political analyst Johannes Hillje told DW that the AfD's embrace of Simson is part of a broader culture war. To him, the moped offers the party something unusually valuable: a ready-made symbol of East German youth culture rooted in regional pride and identity.

The fact that the brand has Jewish roots, he said, illustrates the party's instrumental approach to cultural symbols.

"It is a tactic to cover the nativist and radical character of the party," Hillje said.

The strategy is not unique to Germany. Across Europe, far-right parties increasingly wrap themselves in regional traditions, local symbols and cultural identity.

Across Germany, political parties have long appealed to regional identity. A 2026 study by political scientist Jan Philipp Thomeczek of the University of Potsdam shows how the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Free Voters in Bavaria often portray themselves as defenders of Bavarian traditions against political elites in Berlin or the European Union (EU).

Political scientist Hajo Funke said the AfD was moving in a different direction from several other European far-right parties.

"Unlike neighboring countries' parties such as Le Pen's Rassemblement National or Meloni's post-fascist party, they are not becoming more moderate or pragmatic, but are radicalizing," Funke said, referring to far-right parties in France and Italy, respectively. That, he said, makes familiar cultural symbols especially useful to the AfD, as it softens the edges of a more radical political message.

That is precisely why the dispute matters for Baum.

He believes that the AfD campaign is aimed not only at people who remember East Germany, but at younger generations, as well, to manipulate youths to associate regional pride with the AfD's politics.

Asked what message he would want to give that generation, Baum answered without hesitation: "Beware of false friends."

Edited by Rina Goldenberg