Posts on revolution and civil war
Prosecutor General examines AfD chat group – parliamentary groups in Bavaria take the first steps
Stephan Protschka, chairman of AfD Bayern since October, is one of the administrators of the chat group “Alternative Nachrichtengruppe Bayern”. He denies calls for subversion or violence in the group (archive picture from February 2021).
© Timm Schamberger / DPA
The publication of radical chat posts by Bavarian AfD politicians have initial consequences for the party – in the Munich state parliament but also on the part of the public prosecutor’s office.
After radical comments became known in a Telegram chat group of the AfD, the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office got involved. The Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET) of the investigative authority is checking the statements, a spokesman said on Thursday on request. An examination by a public prosecutor’s office is not the same as a preliminary investigation. First, it is checked whether a criminal offense could have occurred.
Call for revolution and civil war
Had on Wednesday the Bavarian Broadcasting (BR) reportsthat participants of the “Alternative News Group Bavaria” had discussed, among other things, violent protests and a civil war in Germany. “Without overthrow and revolution we can no longer change course here,” wrote an AfD district chairman, according to BR. Another message reads: “I think that we will not get out of this number without civil war.”
Group members are therefore also large parts of the parliamentary group, the Bavarian AfD Bundestag group and the state executive. An administrator of the group is the AfD state chief and member of the Bundestag Stephan Protschka. He had declared: “There were no contributions to the discussion that called for subversion and / or violence.”
The other Bavarian parliamentary groups meanwhile drew an initial political conclusion from the revelations. In a meeting of the education committee on Thursday, the dismissal of the previous committee chairman, AfD member Markus Bayerbach, was initiated, said the CSU parliamentary group in Munich. A decision on dismissal can be made at the earliest two weeks after receipt of the application.
In addition, the representatives of the CSU, Greens, SPD, Free Voters and FDP in the education committee unanimously demanded the exclusion of AfD MP Anna Cyron from the committee. Cyron is said to have written that, in their opinion, social problems can only be solved with “civil war”.
Söder calls for AfD observation by the protection of the constitution
“We are used to a lot from the AfD, but it has a completely different quality,” said Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU). The state must defend itself against it. “I think now is really the reason for the protection of the Constitution to take over the observation.”
The chairman of the Green parliamentary group, Katharina Schulze, said that Bayerbach could not remain chairman of the committee under any circumstances. Schulze called it “high time” that the entire AfD was observed by the protection of the constitution in Bavaria. “Openly despising democracy, glorifying violence, spreading hatred and agitation – that is the AfD parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament,” explained Schulze. It is frightening that people who call for civil war and the establishment of an authoritarian system are sitting in the state parliament.
The Bavarian Constitutional Protection has so far not observed the AfD regional association as such, but the youth organization JA, the former “wing” as the basin of the volkish movement in the AfD, as well as individual right-wing extremist party members, as a spokesman for the authority announced. The agency left it open whether and what the constitution protection would do in the matter of chat groups, but emphasized: “The Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution will, on the basis of its legal mandate, follow up any information it becomes aware of extremist and security-endangering efforts at any time and on its own initiative.” These would be thoroughly checked – if the legal requirements were met, the intelligence service would start observing individuals and groups of people.
Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) said on Wednesday that the question of observing individual MPs and the party as a whole would arise.