Of course, Greding is about: the Greding cause. As usual, the AfD held its party conference in a hall in the Middle Franconian city on Saturday. And that’s where the party headquarters should move (highly disputed internally). The AfD currently maintains its state office in the Munich district. In the summer, the board, which is dominated by the völkisch “wing”, and led by Stephan Protschka, informed the members by letter: The 2022 budget had “a massive underfunding”. The move should save money “as soon as possible”, in Greding they already rent a warehouse for posters.
A seat far away from the state capital? At the time, this outraged members in particular in Upper Bavaria. The dispute escalated when it ended up in the labor court. The works council – yes there is one – sued to stop the move and suspected the directional dispute in the AfD behind the measure. The employees should be disgusted with it, it was said, and replaced by wing people. The court allowed the move, but asked if they could pull themselves together. Which one rarely tends to do in the AfD.
Now in Greding, a decision has been made on an application by the AfD district of Upper Bavaria: against the move and with the offer to pay for the previous rooms in exchange for shared use. At first, however, the report by Treasurer Rainer Groß caused irritation. He said the party was “not a bed of roses” and that the lawsuit against the surveillance by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, for example, “exceeds the budget”. The move makes sense for “restructuring”, but not urgently. And for any political motives behind it, he “don’t let himself be beaten up”. The members almost did the latter, it got heated.
The board tried to spoil the previous location, in the industrial area above a Chinese restaurant, “it looks shit,” said Protschka. With a strong performance in the state elections, you can afford “something reasonable” directly in Munich. Others reprimanded the leadership’s arbitrary actions, saying that the camp in Greding was even more of a “shambles” – and that even the Bavarian Pirate Party was based in Munich.
The end? A narrow vote by the members of the party conference for the application – against the move. While some talk about a “watschn” for Protschka, when asked, he says: Party congress resolutions are “implemented, of course.”