As Donald Trump gathered his supporters, family and friends at Mar-a-Lago on US election day last month to wait for the results to trickle in, a small group of far-right Germans went largely unnoticed.

Among them was the purported semi-professional, one-time porn actor, self-confessed former cocaine user, convicted thief and hard-right candidate for the German parliament Phillipp-Anders Rau. Together with a compact delegation of young political activists and influencers, Rau posed for the cameras with the American president-elect at his invitation, chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in English and German.

Members of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party had already been making inroads with the Trump camp for several months before the US vote, as Europe’s populist anti-migration forces attempt to harness Maga’s momentum before Germany’s general election in February.

Alice Weidel, the AfD leader, became one of the first politicians abroad to welcome Trump’s victory, and party members say they are cultivating proximity to the incoming administration, with a few planning to attend next month’s inauguration in Washington.

Rau, an AfD candidate for the Bundestag from Saxony-Anhalt state, posted snapshots on Instagram of his brief encounter with Trump in Florida on 5 November, with voting still under way.

“It will remain an everlasting memory, being allowed as the first and until now only member of the AfD to shake the hand of @realdonaldtrump on the day of his victory,” he wrote. “We hope that Donald Trump will create the renewal for his country that we as the AfD plan for our country.”

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Rau stood beaming next to Trump, who was wearing a Maga hat. They were joined by Leonard Jäger, who as “Ketzer der Neuzeit” (Heretic of the New Age) posts anti-LGBTQ and conspiracy theory videos on YouTube; the rightwing activist Beat Ulrich Zirpel; and Fabrice Ambrosini, a former regional leader of the centre-right CDU’s youth wing who was pressed to step down in 2021 after allegedly flashing the straight-armed Hitler salute. A criminal investigation against him was ultimately dropped.

Jäger and the lesser-known Zirpel later shared a video of their moment in the spotlight, in which Trump emerges on the club veranda and beckons for the group to come to him: “Hello everybody, so where’s my German friends?” The men begin chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!, the rallying cry Trump shouted after the attempt on his life at a Pennsylvania rally in July.

Someone off-camera asks them to say it in German and they oblige, before Trump shakes each of their hands and says: “Thank you, fellas.”

Jäger posted: “We just shouted ‘Kämpft, kämpft, kämpft’ (‘fight, fight, fight’) with president Trump at Mar-a-Lago Club right before election night!”

“We as Germans need a conservative revolution based on Christian values as well! Elon Musk, German mainstream media won’t like this.”

Two months out from the 23 February election, and polling in second place with about 18%, the nationalist AfD has been undeterred by Trump’s criticism of Germany over its defence spending, car exports and energy policy.

But the young men’s enthusiasm for Trump, 78, and giddy bewilderment at their arrival at his private club are less surprising than how they ended up at his side in the first place, with the meeting’s origins remaining murky.

Rau is a divisive figure even within the anti-migrant, anti-Islam AfD. He belongs to a state chapter that the domestic security agency has classified as confirmed rightwing extremist, while the national party has been deemed suspected rightwing extremist.

The 41-year-old has taken legal action against the Magdeburger Volksstimme newspaper, which published a series on a number of suspected scandals in Rau’s past.

Accused by a rival at an AfD party congress in August of moonlighting as a paid porn actor, Rau issued a denial: “At no time did I make professional videos … I am neither a virgin nor a porn star.” However, after Rau sued the Volksstimme’s publishers a court in Frankfurt ruled in favour of the journalists, saying: “He participated in filming for a professional porn video that was clearly intended for release.”

Rau was also convicted of fraud in 2017 for falsifying his high school final report card to gain admission to university, according to court records cited by Volksstimme; a defence lawyer argued his cocaine addiction at the time was a mitigating circumstance. And in 2012 he was found guilty of stealing, with a female accomplice, more than €1,500 worth of goods from a Munich hotel including 100 towels, 80 bed linens and 21 soap dispensers. In both cases Rau, who has since declared bankruptcy, received a suspended sentence.

According to media reports, it was the AfD politician Jan Wenzel Schmidt who served as Rau’s door opener to Trump as far back as early 2023. The news website t-online said Schmidt was known to maintain ties with the ethno-nationalist Identitarian Movement, which the authorities say is “confirmed rightwing extremist”. The 33-year-old has sat in the Saxony-Anhalt state legislature 2016-2021 and since 2021 in the Bundestag.

Schmidt and Ambrosini reportedly attended a December 2023 reception of the New York Young Republican Club, where Trump spoke. The former president also appeared in photos with the AfD MEP Maximilian Krah and Mathilda Martina Huss, who the month before had hosted a secret meeting in Potsdam with AfD politicians and neo-Nazi activists at which they discussed “remigration” or forced deportation of migrants and German-born people descended from immigrants.

“I was convinced that Trump would become president again, and wanted to make contact with the Republicans early on,” Schmidt told the daily Bild recently. “Other parties are hectically setting out and we already have a good connection.”

Last April, in exchange, young New York Republicans were invited by the AfD to Berlin and Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt state – while Rau, Schmidt and other AfD officials later photographed themselves volunteering with Trump’s campaign in Florida. “As a thank you there was a handful of tickets for Trump’s election party,” said Bild, which quoted Schmidt as saying he and an entourage would be at the inauguration in January.

Rau and Ambrosini did not respond to requests for comment. Schmidt said through a spokesperson that he had not been in Florida the night of the US election and had not had an “official meeting” with the young Republicans in 2023. He added that he had no “definitive travel plans” for the time of the inauguration.

On his stance on Trump, Schmidt referred to a motion from his state AfD chapter in the regional parliament after the US election in which it said that the president-elect’s pledge to end the war in Ukraine “offers hope of a normalisation of economic and security ties with Russia”.

Although the AfD has traditionally been pro-Russian and critical of US influence in Europe, the party’s opposition to arms assistance in Kyiv’s fight against the Russian invasion dovetails with views expressed by Trump, whom they have hailed as a promising “bringer of peace” in Ukraine.

“Peace in Germany and Europe will be decided with the election in the USA, Rau wrote in an Instagram caption from Florida on 5 November. “Patriots have to work together internationally.”