Deportation plans
AfD secret meeting probably not only in Potsdam – MPs more involved than expected
The Bavarian AfD member of the state parliament Daniel Halemba: His positions are too right-wing even for the federal party – he is also said to have taken part in a secret meeting on the subject of mass deportations.
© Rolf Poss / Imago Images
AfD politicians probably didn’t just meet with right-wing extremists in Potsdam. There was probably a similar event in Bavaria before. The controversial AfD member of the state parliament Daniel Halemba is said to have taken part.
According to research by WDR, NDR and the “Süddeutscher Zeitung”, other confidants from the area around the Potsdam secret meeting with right-wing extremists took part AfD leadership took part. According to the research published on Tuesday evening, the son of the organizer Gernot Mörig, Arne Friedrich Mörig, was also there. This was paid for with funds from the AfD federal executive board, namely from the personal budget that party leader Alice Weidel can use directly, the two broadcasters and the newspaper reported.
Mörig also gave a lecture at the meeting about founding a new right-wing social media agency. According to research, he is said to have had a contract for the AfD since the end of 2022 and was responsible for social media for the AfD federal executive board. The contract has now been terminated, the broadcasters and the newspaper reported. However, Arne Friedrich Mörig is not said to have been in the AfD’s federal office.
At the end of 2023, after the meeting in Potsdam and before the Correctiv network reported on it, Mörig is said to have presented the plans to found an influencer agency to the AfD’s federal executive board, according to research. Weidel, Mörig, Hartwig and the AfD left questions about this unanswered, it was said.
Right and AfD discussed “remigration” in Potsdam
Until now, it was known in the scandal surrounding the secret meeting revealed by the Correctiv platform that, in addition to an AfD member of the state parliament and an AfD member of the Bundestag, Weidel’s personal advisor Roland Hartwig, who has since been fired, also took part.
According to Correctiv research, AfD politicians, members of the right-wing conservative Values Union, right-wing extremists and entrepreneurs met in a hotel near Potsdam at the end of November 2023 to discuss the expulsion of millions of people with an immigrant background from Germany. Martin Sellner, long-time spokesman for Austria’s right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement”, presented a plan for such a mass expulsion, euphemistically called “remigration”.
Probably meeting in Bavaria before Potsdam
According to a report in the “Augsburger Allgemeine” on Wednesday, there was a similar event in Bavaria on November 11th, two weeks before the meeting in Potsdam. The controversial Bavarian AfD state parliament member Daniel Halemba and another AfD state parliament member from the party are said to have taken part.
Sellner was also at the meeting in Dasing in the Aichach-Friedberg district, the newspaper reported, citing a spokesman for the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The spokesman said that this must be concluded from an Internet post “on the same day at the same venue”. He did not mention the names of MPs to the newspaper.
According to research by the “Augsburger Allgemeine”, the Lower Franconian deputy Halemba and the Neu-Ulm state parliament member Franz Schmid can be clearly identified in a photo of the meeting in a Dasingen restaurant that was distributed on social networks. As the main speaker, Sellner spoke about the “remigration” of people with a migration background from Germany. Immediately after the event, Sellner spoke to more than 60 participants in a video distributed on the Telegram network.
The Würzburg public prosecutor’s office is investigating Halemba for incitement to hatred and the use of symbols of anti-constitutional organizations. At the end of October, an arrest warrant against the newly elected MP made headlines across the country. The AfD has now initiated party expulsion proceedings against the 22-year-old.