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.

[6] Petry is noted for her anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views, for her calls to ban minarets,[7] and for arguing that German police forces should "use firearms if necessary" to prevent illegal border-crossings in Europe.

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.

[14] Petry believes sharia is incompatible with the "democratic and liberal order of state"[15] and has said that the majority within her AfD favors a liberal-conservative policy.

[17] This national dialogue is happening in the wake of a 2012 decision of a Higher Regional Court in Cologne, which called the circumcision of a 4-year-old boy "bodily harm".

[15] In April 2017, Petry stepped down as AfD's candidate for chancellor due to reports that she wanted to change the party's policies to appeal to more moderate voters like the Sweden Democrats.

[19] This came after she had frequently criticised Björn Höcke, one of the founders of AfD,[20][21][22][23] due to a speech that he held in Dresden in which, referring to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, he stated that "we Germans are the only people in the world who have planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital",[24] and suggested that Germans "need to make a 180 degree change in their politics of commemoration".

[28] Despite the internal strife, her party voted to allow her to run for a seat in the German parliament in the September 2017 elections.

[28] One day after election night in which Petry was elected to the Bundestag by direct mandate, she left an AfD press conference saying that she won't join the party's parliamentary group in the Bundestag because the party became too "anarchical" and "could not offer a credible platform".

In 2020, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the conviction on the grounds that the law on perjury did not apply to the context in which she made the false statements.

[9] Petry made a reappearance in public during an April 2021 interview with Kurt Krömer in which she spoke about the Alternative for Germany donation scandal.

[39] Frauke Petry also revealed that "much more than just friendly feelings" had developed between her and Marcus Pretzell, a fellow AfD party member.