BERLIN — The far-right Alternative for Germany has turned German politics on its head, but leadership squabbles threaten to derail the party's rapid rise.

Founded in 2013 as a protest party calling for the abolition of the euro and an end to bailouts given to EU members, it has developed into a far-right force to be reckoned with and now takes aim at Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy and the role of Islam in Germany.

It's a strategy that's working, with opinion polls putting the AfD at 12 percent support. In March it had its best-ever results in three state elections.

This weekend, the AfD holds its national convention in Stuttgart and party members will try to flesh out its manifesto amid bitter internal squabbles. Here are the major players:

The figurehead — Frauke Petry (party leader)

Dubbed the AfD’s Audrey Hepburn by the ultraconservative Compact magazine, the 40-year-old former chemist and mother of four became party chief last summer when she toppled co-founder Bernd Lucke, who quit the party in protest over its surge to the right.

For a time, she had strong support within the party, but her power base has been crumbling.

In October 2015, Petry irritated the party faithful who support traditional family values by announcing that she and her husband had separated and she was in a relationship with Marcus Pretzell, an MEP and senior party official.

Petry and Pretzell did not keep a low profile, declaring their love in a widely criticized interview with the glossy magazine Bunte.

Ahead of the national convention, her opponents are trying to take advantage of the unrest, spreading rumors about Petry being unable to take criticism and calling her leadership style increasingly authoritarian.

The summit could well be make-or-break for Petry who is likely to push an anti-Islam rhetoric, a stance popular across the party.

The elder statesman — Alexander Gauland (deputy party chief)

Petry is the face of the party, but its most influential figure is 75-year-old Gauland, a decidedly old-school politician with experience and a contacts book unrivaled in the AfD, partly thanks to the 40 years he spent as a member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The wily political operator believes the time is right to expand the party's horizons and will use the convention to push for cooperation with France's National Front and other European far-right movements.

He is well aware that some in the party are against such pacts, particularly with Marine Le Pen's National Front, which they see as being too far to the left on economic policy, and is instead likely to emphasize the common ground between the AfD and the NF when it comes to the role of Islam in Western Europe.

The enfant terrible — Beatrix von Storch (MEP, deputy party chief)

Coming from a long line of aristocrats, the 44-year-old lawyer (full name Duchess Beatrix Amelie Ehrengard Eilika of Oldenburg) is the maverick of the party.

Whether suggesting on prime time television that Merkel should retire to Chile — an apparent reference to the widow of former East German leader Erich Honecker, who moved to Chile after the fall of the Berlin Wall — or advocating shooting at women and children who try to illegally enter Germany, von Storch’s strategy is to break taboos and get people talking, and damn the consequences.

Within the party, she occupies the middle ground — advocating a liberal pro-market economic policy but being a hardliner when it comes to social issues, backing traditional family values and campaigning against marriage equality (what she calls “gender madness.”)

At this weekend’s convention, she will insist that the party manifesto says Islam is incompatible with the German constitution, and has apparently secured Gauland’s support for such a move.

The shouter — Björn Höcke (regional party chief)

The 44-year-old teacher rose to fame in the city of Erfurt in Thuringia, where he slammed Merkel’s refugee policy, accused her of breaking the law, and encouraged the police “not to follow this woman.”

Höcke is the most prominent member of the ultra-nationalist camp within the party, making no secret of his links to the extreme-right PEGIDA movement, and he likes to provoke the more moderate wing that surrounds Petry, most recently by suggesting Germany leave NATO “as a last consequence” – a statement that caters to anti-American and pro-Russian sentiment among his supporters, but could scare off more moderate voters, other AfD officials fear.

At this weekend’s convention, it's in Höcke's interest to make sure that the AfD remains on its far-right course.

The canny economist — Jörg Meuthen (regional party chief)

While Höcke is known for screaming from the rooftops, Meuthen, who leads the AfD in Baden-Württemberg, prefers to explain his positions calmly during panel discussions.

Although the 54-year-old economics professor might seem like a holdover from the AfD's early days under Lucke, he makes it clear he backs the party's current stance, including its anti-Islam rhetoric, warning of “insidious Islamization” of the country — while at the same time stressing that freedom of religion is guaranteed in the German constitution.

In the top tier of AfD politicians, Meuthen’s role is to make sure that those voters who came to the AfD from the Christian Democrats in protest over Merkel’s handling of the euro crisis and her refugee policy are not scared off by the likes of Höcke.

Meuthen will likely stress this weekend that it's important for the AfD not to forget about its voters from the early days, the high- and medium-earning professionals who were drawn to the AfD because of frustration at Merkel's economic policies.

The other half — Marcus Pretzell (MEP, regional party chief)

If the AfD were to stage a William Shakespeare play, Pretzell, a 42-year-old lawyer, would be well suited to the role of Lady Macbeth.

The head of the largest regional AfD association, in North Rhine-Westphalia, is known as a pugnacious ultra-conservative and excerpts his influence on the party through his partner, Petry. He's the only advisor she really listens to, party members say, and is the reason Petry's rhetoric became noticeably sharper since last summer.

In a similar fashion to von Storch, Pretzell is known for breaking taboos in interviews.

His private life is no exception: When he and Petry gave their eye-catching interview to Bunte, he went into raptures about Petry’s “demonic beauty.”

The young pretender — Markus Frohnmaier (head of the young wing)

The head of the party’s youth organization Young Alternative, Frohnmaier is considered the AfD’s next big star. Most recently he made headlines for his connections to Russia and the youth organization of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia.

The 25-year-old law student, who was born in Romania and adopted by a German couple when he was two, was a member of the youth organization of the CDU before joining the AfD, because of the “social democratization” he observed within Merkel's party.

Like few others, Frohnmaier is pushing his party’s closeness to Russia, fiercely defending the annexation of Crimea as an “achievement of independence.”

The intellectual — Marc Jongen (deputy regional head)

Jongen, a 48-year-old university lecturer and deputy party leader in Baden-Württemberg, once said that his ideal for the AfD was to manage the transition from "protest to ... an established party.”

A former student of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, Jorgen is the AfD's unofficial party philosopher, setting him apart from the screaming slogans of Höcke and the provocative statements of von Storch.

In his view, Germany’s current problem is a lack of pride, self-respect and self-confidence; he believes the country has to fundamentally change “if we want to have a future.”

More than anything else, Jongen's role within the AfD is to provide intellectual weight. This weekend, his job is, at least in part, to make sure the party manifesto contains well thought-out policies and not just rhetoric.