AfD dismisses advisor who attended the “remigration” meeting

German ultra-right party tries to distance itself from the meeting in which extremists presented a plan for the mass deportation of immigrants. The issue provoked outrage in the country and protests in several cities. The ultra-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) announced this Monday (15/01) that it had terminated the employment contract with an advisor who participated in a meeting in which a leader Austrian extremist presented a plan to carry out mass deportations of immigrants.

The meeting took place in November, but only became public last week and sparked outrage in Germany. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people participated in demonstrations against the AfD in cities across the country. The protest in Potsdam was attended by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, from the Green Party.

The dismissed employee is Roland Hartwig, who was an advisor to AfD co-leader Alice Weidel. A spokesperson for the party stated that he and the party decided to terminate his employment contract “by mutual agreement” and with immediate effect, without providing details. The outcome was announced after a meeting of the party's federal executive in Berlin.

Hartwig was considered Weidel's right-hand man, and served as a parliamentarian in the Bundestag (lower house of the German Parliament) from 2017 to 2021, for the AfD.

“Remigration”

The aforementioned meeting took place in a hotel near the city of Potsdam, in the state of Brandenburg, and brought together politicians, lawyers, businesspeople, doctors and dentists, among others, and was revealed last week by the investigative journalism outlet Correctiv.

The report reported that Martin Sellner, who leads the Austrian Identity Movement (IBÖ), presented to those present a plan to move up to two million asylum seekers and immigrants from Germany to North Africa, including those with German citizenship who have not integrated. in the country.

He also reportedly suggested that when the AfD came to power, the biggest “problem” for the party would be the expulsion of “unassimilated citizens.” According to Correctiv, one of the AfD participants claimed that the party is no longer opposed to dual citizenship, as “you can then take away the German one and they will still have one”.

Sellner confirmed his presence at the meeting. “I presented my book and the identity concept of remigration there,” he highlighted, using an expression that the extreme right normally uses to talk about deporting immigrants to their country of origin. The word has also been used on some occasions by members of the AfD itself.

This Monday, “remigration” was chosen as the worst word of 2023 in Germany, announced the jury of Unwort des Jahres (“word of the year”).

AfD distances itself

The leader of the AfD bench in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, confirmed that he was present at the event, but as an individual and not as a member of the state parliament for the ultra-right party.

The acronym had also stated that Hartwig was at the meeting to present a social media project and that he had no prior knowledge that the topic of deportation would be discussed. In addition to Siegmund and Hartwig, Gerrit Huy, an AfD member with a seat in the Bundestag, was at the meeting.

The ultra-right party stressed that Hartwig did not “bring Sellner's ideas on migration policies” to the party and that he “would not change his immigration policies based on the individual ideas of a person present at the meeting”. The AfD also emphasized that it was not the organizer of the event, which was private in nature.

Created in 2013 as a Eurosceptic group before transforming into an anti-immigration party, the AfD entered the German Parliament for the first time in 2017, riding on the wave of discontent among part of the population with a huge influx of migrants, many of them fleeing wars in Germany. Syria and Iraq.

Support for the party fell to around 10% in the 2021 elections, but the party has since recovered ground as the Scholz-led coalition grapples with an energy crisis and a struggling economy following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The AfD currently appears as the second most popular party in national polls, with more than 20% of voting intentions. Polls in three states that will have elections in September this year – Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, the three in the east of the country – even show the AfD as the favorite, supported by more than 30% of voters.

The acronym has a portion of its structures under observation by German intelligence due to well-founded suspicion of an affront to the Constitution and the German democratic order, and the deportation plan has reignited the debate about a possible ban on the AfD.

According to Correctiv, two members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) were also at the meeting. The party said it is investigating the case and denies that they went to the event on behalf of the party.

bl (ots, DW)