Action Group of Independent Germans (, or AUD) was the name of a nationalist-neutralist party in the Federal Republic of Germany. It was founded in May 1965 as a successor of various anti-Nazi nationalist groups and parties in West Germany. By the end of the 1960s, it approached the political demands of the extra-parliamentary opposition (APO), particularly its environmentalism, claiming the title of Germany's first environmentalist party. On 27 April 1980 it would eventually merge into the then-new and still very diverse Greens for which the AUD's long-time leader, August Haußleiter, would end up serving on the federal board.
History.
The AUD was founded on 15/16 May 1965 in Homberg (Efze) and brought together "nationalists who generally clearly distanced themselves from the Nazi regime, liberals and pacifists" from the three right-wing nationalist groups (DG), (DFP) and parts of the Association of the German National Assembly (VDNV) as well as the readership of the newspaper "Neue Politik". The reason for the founding of the AUD was the lack of success of nationalist-neutralist parties in the Federal Republic until the early 1960s. The AUD attempted to unite all nationalist-neutralist currents in a broad alliance. In doing so, it rejected the ideology of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) because it seemed to be too backward-looking and too closely aligned with the NSDAP. The AUD was initially largely unsuccessful with this strategy in elections.