Eberhardt Alexander Gauland (born 20 February 1941) is a German politician, journalist and lawyer who has served as leader of the far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Bundestag since September 2017 and co-leader of the party from December 2017 to November 2019.

[1] Afterwards, he became the head of a department of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety in Bonn and Member of the Hessian Prime Minister's cabinet.

Gerd Robanus, Assessor in the Federal Executive of the CDU-Business Association cited this as the reason for founding the Alternative for Germany together with Alexander Gauland, Konrad Adam and Bernd Lucke.

[3] In February 2014, Gauland received about 80 percent of the vote during an Extraordinary National Congress in Diedersdorf, becoming chairman of the Brandenburg State Association of Alternative for Germany.

On Tuesday, 10 July 2014 Gauland opened the inaugural session of the Landtag of Brandenburg:[5] As part of this speech, after quoting Edmund Burke, Gauland wished the other members of parliament "all the strength and the courage, to tackle the tasks now ahead of them, in the interest of the voters and in the interest of the common good".

"[9] In May 2016, Gauland reportedly made comments about Bayern Munich and black German international footballer Jérôme Boateng in a conversation with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Gauland defended himself, saying he was fooled by the newspaper and it had been a background discussion, which was classified as confidential and thus not intended for publication.

"[12] In response, Germany's justice minister tweeted that the statements showed that Gauland's AfD was on the extreme right.

Gauland's life companion Carola Hein is editor of a local newspaper, the Märkische Allgemeine, which he had previously edited.