1. Frauke Petry had formerly served as one of three party spokespersons from 2013 to 2015, and became leader in 2015, displacing the party's founder Bernd Lucke after an internal power struggle; Lucke subsequently left the party and said it has "fallen irretrievably into the wrong hands" after Frauke Petry's election.
Frauke Petry left the party in turn after stating it had become "anarchical" and unable to provide a "credible platform".
Frauke Petry is noted for her anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views, for her calls to ban minarets, and for arguing that German police forces should "use firearms if necessary" to prevent illegal border-crossings in Europe.
Frauke Petry led the Blue Party until its dissolution in late 2019.
Frauke Petry was born on 1 June 1975 to a chemist and an engineer in Dresden in what was then East Germany.
Frauke Petry lived in Schwarzheide, Brandenburg, near Saxony until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, after which her family moved to Bergkamen, in Westphalia.
Frauke Petry took her first degree in chemistry at the University of Reading, England, in 1998, before attending the University of Gottingen, from where she gained a doctorate in 2004.
Frauke Petry was supported by a scholarship of the Studienstiftung.
Frauke Petry was described as a representative of the national-conservative wing of her party.
Frauke Petry describes herself as national-conservative and supporting policies of "national self-determinism".
Frauke Petry believes sharia is incompatible with the "democratic and liberal order of state" and has said that the majority within her AfD favors a liberal-conservative policy.
In January 2016, when a reporter from the regional newspaper Mannheimer Morgen asked her about European and German border policies, Frauke Petry answered that the German Border Police must do their jobs by "hindering illegal entry of refugees".
Frauke Petry stated that she did not use that term, going on to state that no policeman "wants to fire on a refugee and I don't want that either" but that the BGS must follow the law to maintain the integrity of European borders.
Frauke Petry believes quotas make women unsure of whether a promotion would be made on the basis of qualifications.
Frauke Petry has said that in schools "this sort of religious costume should not be worn".
Frauke Petry backed attempts to expel Hocke from AfD as the party chairwoman, describing him as a "burden to the party", but could not prevail in a power struggle with her party rivals Jorg Meuthen and Alexander Gauland, who accused her of splitting party ranks.
One day after election night in which Frauke 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".
Frauke Petry resigned from the party and all offices on 29 September 2017.
Frauke Petry was charged with perjury for allegedly lying under oath about her former party's finances.
Frauke Petry was convicted and sentenced to a fine of 6,000 euros.
On 12 October 2017, Frauke Petry announced that she would form a new party, called the Blue Party, which would provide a "reasonable conservative" agenda and seek to replicate the success of the Bavarian Christian Social Union.
Frauke Petry made a reappearance in public during an April 2021 interview with Kurt Kromer in which she spoke about the Alternative for Germany donation scandal.
Frauke Petry revealed that she would be writing a book about her time as AfD leader.
The book was published as Requiem for the AfD in which Frauke Petry argued the party had become a "chaotic protest party" no longer interested in governing after she resigned as leader and accused politicians within the party of being blackmailed into accepting undeclared donations.
In 2007, Frauke Petry founded her own business, PURinvent, a Leipzig-based manufacturer of polyurethane tire fill products.
Frauke Petry received the Medal of the Order of Merit in 2012.
Frauke Petry separated from her husband, Sven Frauke Petry, a Lutheran pastor, in October 2015, stating that this was by mutual consent and that the two remained friends and would continue to share in the upbringing of their four children.
Frauke Petry revealed that "much more than just friendly feelings" had developed between her and Marcus Pretzell, a fellow AfD party member.
At about the same time, it was announced that Sven Frauke Petry had joined the CDU.
In December 2016, Frauke Petry married Pretzell, by then her domestic partner.
Frauke Petry is a member of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony, a member church of the Evangelical Church in Germany.
Frauke Petry criticizes many stances of the EKD, which historically holds a largely liberal Protestant stance, claiming it follows "only its own interests" regarding immigration.