AfD in the Bundestag employs more than 100 right-wing extremists

Neo-Nazis, Identitarians, fraternities – the AfD in the Bundestag employs more than 100 people from the right-wing extremist milieu. One BR-Research shows for the first time the extent to which the AfD grants enemies of the constitution access to parliament.

More people from the right-wing extremist spectrum work for the AfD members of the Bundestag than previously known. This is what research shows Bavarian Radio. Accordingly, the AfD parliamentary group and its MPs employ more than 100 people who are active in organizations that are classified as right-wing extremist by German constitutional protection offices. Among them are activists from the “Identitarian Movement”, ideological thinkers from the “New Right” and several neo-Nazis.

Accurate Number of employees not clear

It is unclear exactly how many employees the AfD’s 78 MPs employ: only a few name their team on their website. The Bundestag administration and the AfD parliamentary group do not provide any information on this. According to its own information, the group itself has 182 employees (as of February 16).

Dem BR There are several internal lists of names from the Bundestag. The reporter team was also able to view current employee lists from the AfD parliamentary group. In this way has BR research identified more than 500 people who, according to the available information, work for the AfD parliamentary group or its representatives and researched the backgrounds.

The parliamentary group and MP employees include people who are mentioned by name in reports for the protection of the constitution and those who hold leadership positions in organizations under observation. The BR The employees came across participants in neo-Nazi marches in Chemnitz, Dortmund, Dresden, Magdeburg and Zwickau.

Connections to Reich citizens and “lateral thinkers”

There are also people who have appeared in connection with Reich citizen groups or the right-wing extremist prepper group “Endkampf”. Employees have founded local Pegida branches and organized “lateral thinkers” demonstrations.

More than half of the AfD MPs employ people who are active in organizations that are classified as right-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Below are after BR-The parliamentary group leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla also do research.

The group, the MPs and their staff were given the opportunity to comment. Most inquiries went unanswered. Some MPs questioned the independence of the constitutional protection offices.

More than 30 million euros per year

The group wrote that for “reasons of data protection and the protection of personal rights” they would not comment. In addition, the classification of a constitutional protection office is “fundamentally a pure measure of this respective authority” which does not have any “and certainly not ‘automatic’ legal effects” attached to it.

In total, the AfD parliamentary group and its MPs have more than 30 million euros available for employees – per year. The Vice President of the German Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens), said this BRemployees with connections to right-wing extremist circles are a danger; they want to undermine democracy from within.

The results of the research are “shocking”. One must consider whether enemies of the constitution who work in the Bundestag should continue to be paid with tax money. “We should change that. We can’t just let it go like this.”

Actors of the “New Right”

Actors from the spectrum of the so-called “New Right” are particularly noticeable. This is a current in right-wing extremism that represents its ideological renewal after National Socialism. Various magazines, publishers, think tanks, associations and activist groups can be counted among the “New Right”. Representatives of the “New Right” see themselves as the “frontrunner” of the AfD.

The New Right includes the “One Percent” association, which sees itself as “Germany’s largest patriotic citizens’ network.” He collects donations and uses them to support activists from the right-wing spectrum. Last year, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified “One Percent” as a “certain right-wing extremist effort.”

The Federal Office describes the association as a “project funding and networking agency” in whose campaigns migrants are generally denigrated. According to documents from the association register, one of the board members of “One Percent” is John Hoewer.

Martial arts with neo-Nazis

After BR-Information Hoewer works for the Rhineland-Palatinate Bundestag member Sebastian Münzenmaier. The fraternity member Hoewer makes contacts from Italian fascists to the Identitarian movement to the AfD.

Photos that BR available show him in Berlin in 2021 during martial arts training with neo-Nazis from the NPD environment. There are also videos that show Hoewer in physical confrontations with left-wing demonstrators in a lecture hall at the University of Magdeburg in January 2017. Hoewer and Münzenmaier left inquiries unanswered, and “One Percent” also did not comment.

The BR has identified five AfD employees in the Bundestag who have a close connection to “One Percent”. Authors from the new right-wing magazine “Sezession”, the publishing house “Antaios” and the magazine “Compact” also work in the Bundestag.

These structures are all monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In total, around 20 people with strong ties to New Right organizations work in the Bundestag – including those who appeared as speakers at the right-wing extremist “Institute for State Policy” in Schnellroda.

Around 25 people from the “Young Alternative”

AfD members of the Bundestag also employ people who were too extreme for the party itself. For example, there is a door sign with the name Frank Pasemann in the Otto Wels House of the Bundestag on Unter den Linden Street. Pasemann was himself a member of the Bundestag for the AfD in the previous legislative period, but in 2020 he was expelled from the party and parliamentary group.

In the party expulsion process, he was accused of behavior that was harmful to the party and anti-Semitism. According to the door sign, he works for MP Jürgen Pohl. Pasemann and Pohl did not comment when asked.

Marvin Neumann is also employed by an AfD representative. The former head of Junge Alternative (JA), the AfD’s youth organization, resigned from the party in 2021 under pressure. Among other things, he was accused of making a statement about “white supremacy”. Today he works for Hannes Gnauck from Brandenburg. Neumann and Gnauck left inquiries unanswered.

YES “secured right-wing extremist aspirations”

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the JA as a “secure right-wing extremist effort,” and the organization is currently defending itself against this in court. According to the research, around 25 JA members work for the AfD parliamentary group or its members in the Bundestag. In addition, some people work there who were JA members and are now older than 35 years old. According to the statutes, membership ends when the person turns 35.

The AfD regional associations in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia are also classified as right-wing extremist by the constitutional protection authorities in their respective states. Dozens of members from these regional associations work for MPs and the parliamentary group. Many of them are also active in other anti-constitutional structures.

While the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is increasingly targeting the AfD and government members and opposition politicians are now even discussing banning the party, the research shows for the first time to what extent the AfD grants enemies of the constitution access to parliament.

Professor of political science Armin Pfahl-Traughber, who was a consultant on right-wing extremism at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution until 2004 and has since been researching at the Federal University of Applied Sciences, said this ARD-Politics magazine Report Munich, it is a problem “that right-wing extremists actually sit at the organizational heart of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.” There they could “exercise influence and spread propaganda.”

Activists of the “Identitarian Movement”

One of the employees is banned from entering the Bundestag buildings: Mario Müller works for MP Jan Wenzel Schmidt from Saxony-Anhalt. In January, “Correctiv” reported that Müller was one of the speakers at the so-called “secret meeting” in Potsdam.

Müller has been active in the right-wing extremist scene since the 2000s and has been convicted of assault offenses several times. Die Welt first reported on Müller’s employment with Schmidt.

Dem BR There are photos that show Müller in the environment of the “Young National Democrats,” the name of the NPD’s youth organization. Müller later emerged as a prominent head of the “Identitarian Movement” (IB) – a network of “New Right” activists.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the IB as right-wing extremist. Photos that the BR Müller could see it in 2023 on a hike with neo-Nazis.

Müller did not comment when asked. His employer Schmidt said so BR on the sidelines of an event in an AfD office in Saxony-Anhalt on Friday: “I’ll keep my staff as they are.” It is important to him that his employees have “sensible qualifications”. Addressing the audience, he said: “I can also guarantee that the established parties are right to be afraid of us. They have rightly appointed the Office for the Protection of the Constitution on us. We will change significant things when we govern.”

More than ten people from the Identitarians’ environment

The BR has identified more than ten people from the IB environment who work for the AfD parliamentary group or its representatives. These are, for example, activists who took part in demonstrations or actions, carried the organization’s banners or flags, wrote for publications from the scene or are involved in an identity women’s group.

For example, Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, who works for Parliamentary Secretary Bernd Baumann. According to her own statements, she is involved in “the Lucreta women’s initiative”. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia writes that “Lukreta” is an association of people with “content and personnel references to the ‘Identitarian Movement Germany'”.

Kaiser also acts as a content creator. She moderates a video format for the “One Percent” association. Similar to her boss, when asked, she said that the “assessment of the AfD and its opposition frontrunners by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution” was “entirely influenced by party politics and as a result is not a benchmark for my political actions.”