AfD party donations: The club that was just a cover

For years, an association supported the AfD in the election campaign with campaigns worth millions. Research by NDR, WDR and the “Zeit” now show that the real actor is apparently in Switzerland.

By C. Fuchs, S. Pittelkow, K. Riedel and H. Vogel, NDR / WDR

It was a bulky name under which billions and advertising campaigns in favor of the AfD ran from 2016 to 2018. An “Association for the Preservation of the Rule of Law and Civil Liberties eV” had launched the campaigns, so it could be read on the posters and in the imprint of hundreds of thousands of free advertising newspapers. The advertising messages called for voting for the AfD. According to its own statements, the party itself had neither commissioned nor paid it and asserted that it did not know anything about how it had come about.

New research by NDR, WDR and the “Zeit” now suggest that the club has apparently never acted as a real actor. It mainly served as a facade to make this kind of “parallel actions” legally possible as advertising from third parties. Unlike a political party or an agency, the association does not have to disclose its finances to anyone. The construction of an association made it possible for the until now unknown patrons to legally invest a lot of money in advertising for the AfD and at the same time to remain hidden.

According to the research, however, payments went directly through a Swiss advertising agency called Goal AG and its German boss Alexander Segert. It is still unclear who originally paid the millions for the campaigns.

Where do the millions come from?

An important indication that the association primarily served as a camouflage: on the German association account, on which supposedly thousands of German supporters should have raised money with small donations in order to pay for the advertising, never amounted to millions. According to information from NDR, WDR and the “time” is said to have never been more than a four-digit sum deposited on the account in question, which existed in 2016 and 2017 at the Volks- und Raiffeisenbank Lichtenfels. This is described by several insiders, including a former high-ranking member of the association. “That was the problem,” says this insider.

The payments for the Pro-AfD campaign in several election campaigns were therefore not processed via this association account. So did the millions flow directly from the advertising agency Goal AG from Switzerland?

Deliver agreements through an agency

Further documents and statements speak for it. On September 7, 2016, the association chartered the ship “Spree-Comtess” for an event in Berlin. Former Czech President Vaclav Klaus gave a speech to 180 visitors who enjoyed canapés with smoked salmon and Pinot Noir during a boat trip on the Spree. This is also what the documents show. The request to the charter company came initially from the support association. The shipping company’s bill for € 6,295 was not paid by the shipping company, but by the advertising agency Goal AG.

A Swiss number and “Mr. Segert” are given as the contact person. Alexander Segert is the managing director of Goal AG from Switzerland. According to the e-mail, the agreements in advance were made through two consultants from the agency – not through association members.

The first representative of the legal predecessor of the association, Josef Konrad, was also directly recruited by Goal AG to set up the support initiative. Konrad confirmed that NDR, WDR and the “time”. When the association became an association in 2016, a young man named David Bendels took over the chairmanship.

One man – many functions

Bendels also became editor-in-chief of a newspaper of the association, the “Deutschland-Kurier”, which promotes the AfD to this day. Because in some cases it could be proven that AfD functionaries had ordered the newspaper free of charge from Bendels and distributed it as free election advertising, the AfD had to pay a fine of 72,000 euros to the Bundestag administration for illegal party donations. To this day, the Bundestag administration keeps checking whether the various activities of the association are illegal party donations for the AfD.

The newspaper, which now only appears on the Internet, was initially published by the AfD support association, but has now been published by a Conservare Communication GmbH from Hamburg, whose managing director is also Bendels. The company had recently made a name for itself because it had posted an anti-green campaign. Here, too, the clients are unclear.

Goal takes over the editing

Research by NDR, WDR and the “Zeit” can now show, however, that Bendels apparently does not determine the editorial activities of the “Deutschland-Kurier” alone as editor-in-chief. This emerges from an email that two Goal AG employees sent to the authors of the “Kurier” in March 2020 – from the official editorial email address of the AfD advertising newspaper.

The Goal employees point out that “day-to-day business” will be taken care of by them in the future after their predecessor stopped working as an editorial manager. According to research, this predecessor is said to have signed his contract with Goal boss Segert.

Offers to AfD MPs

When the manager resigned, Segert himself is said to have been looking for a successor, including in AfD circles. The authors contacted include several AfD members of the European and Bundestag, including the previous chairman of the Bundestag budget committee, Peter Boehringer, and the European parliamentarian Maximilian Krah. At that time employees in AfD offices are also among the addressees, the chairwoman of the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, Erika Steinbach, the former Republican boss Rolf Schlierer, a former Bild chief correspondent and a PR manager from southern Germany, who loudly his website works for various political parties.

In another case, too, it seems that Bendels was the initiator of the contact, while Werber Segert was the maker and financier of the AfD support campaign: In the summer of 2018, the chairman of the association Bendels turned to the AfD politician Katrin Ebner-Steiner. He offered to organize a “political autumn festival of the Deutschland-Kurier” for them shortly before the state elections. Ebner-Steiner ran for the AfD for the Bavarian state parliament.

In Plattling, AfD celebrities like Alice Weidel and a former FPÖ MP from the EU Parliament were supposed to campaign for Ebner-Steiner, the posters had already been printed: “Bavarian delicacies and free beer are provided!” A children’s bouncy castle, a band and an ox grill, as well as advertisements in newspapers were also planned according to the “cost estimate”. The offer of August 17, 2018, the WDR, NDR and “Zeit” is available, but did not come from the Association for the Rule of Law – but again directly from Switzerland, from Goal AG. The advertising agency wanted to pay the AfD politician for the entire festival, cost: 48,000 euros.

Fee for appearance at your own club?

A single item on the offer also appears interesting: “Bendels: 3000 euros”. Accordingly, the club’s chairman should apparently receive a fee from his service provider, the advertising agency Goal, for appearing at an event held by his own club. Neither Bendels nor Segert wanted to comment on request. Back then, Katrin Ebner-Steiner turned down the generous offer in the end. She is said to have feared accepting an illegal party donation.

The total amount that the AfD and individual officials have benefited from Goal AG and the Tarnverein has so far been mainly based on estimates. Correctiv, ZDF and “Spiegel” recently reported that the poster campaigns alone that called for the election of the AfD are said to have had a budget of around three million euros.