Three weeks after it became known that AfD politicians were meeting with right-wing extremists in a Potsdam hotel, the party’s leadership is trying to distance itself from the plans for mass deportations discussed there. On Wednesday, the party distributed a position paper from the federal executive committee that explains how the AfD envisions the “remigration” of immigrants. At the Potsdam meeting, the right-wing extremist and leading head of the Identitarian Movement Martin Sellner said he gave a lecture on “remigration”. Right-wing extremists usually understand this to mean that millions of people of foreign origin have to leave the country. In a video about the meeting, the Austrian Sellner explained that he also understood the “concept” to mean local citizens who did not want to assimilate. The media house’s report Corrective had triggered the current wave of protests against right-wing extremists and the AfD.
In the AfD position paper, the party explains that for it the term includes “all measures and incentives for the constitutional and legal repatriation of foreigners who are obliged to leave the country to their homeland.” The party leadership expressly names foreigners who are legally obliged to leave the country, such as rejected asylum seekers, foreign threats, extremists and serious criminals, as well as civil war refugees with subsidiary protection once the war in their homeland has ended. Syrians and Afghans in particular have to go back because “the fighting in their countries of origin has largely ended.” The radical Islamic Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and the dictator Bashar al-Assad rules in Syria.
Weidel also wanted to get rid of Germans with foreign roots
The AfD is emphatically loyal to the constitution. Her demands correspond to the current legal situation, she explained, or can be implemented through constitutionally compliant changes to the law. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is currently examining whether it classifies the federal party as right-wing extremist. According to the AfD federal executive board, there are no plans to deport German citizens from immigrant families, as was said to have been discussed in Potsdam. This is decidedly rejected.
This is in contrast to previous statements from the party leadership. Under the heading “Lowering the hurdles to revoking citizenship,” AfD leader Alice Weidel had the same statement on the day it was published Corrective-History explains that it not only wants to consistently deport foreigners, but also “withdraws the passports” of criminals, menaces, terrorists and rapists. The “automatism” of not deporting criminals “because they also have German citizenship must be abolished,” Weidel broadcast on the AfD channel on Telegram. Accordingly, the AfD is also concerned with getting rid of Germans with foreign roots.
The AfD is also trying to appeal to voters with a migration background
Now the opposite is emphasized. The AfD does not differentiate between German citizens with and without a migration background. Last week, the AfD’s top EU candidate, Maximilian Krah, tried to give the AfD’s demands this spin. “You won’t be deported,” he addressed potential supporters from immigrant families directly on Platform X, “because you should vote for me.” Despite all its rejection of immigration, the AfD is definitely trying to appeal to people with a migration background as voters.
The AfD presents the reports on the Potsdam meeting and the debate there about mass deportations as a coordinated action against the strengthened party; Weidel spoke in the Bundestag on Wednesday of an “unprecedented slander campaign.” Members of the CDU, the ultra-conservative Values Union and several AfD politicians took part in the meeting, including party leader Weidel’s personal advisor, Roland Hartwig. Weidel then separated from him.