How close are the connections between the right-wing extremist Sellner, the FPÖ and the AfD? Research shows that there is more than just private meetings. The name of the AfD’s leading candidate for Europe also appears.
According to the Correctiv research network, AfD member of the Bundestag Gerrit Huy, the parliamentary group leader in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, and a former employee of AfD leader Alice Weidel were present at the Potsdam secret meeting on planned mass expulsions from Germany.
Everything “Insinuations”?
Nevertheless, Weidel did not want to know anything about networking with Martin Sellner and the other right-wing extremists on site. Rather, Weidel tried to defame the reporters: “The allegations made by the left-wing activist network Correctiv represent one of the largest, most egregious media and political scandals in the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Although in her opinion it was only a matter of insinuations, Weidel separated from her colleague Roland Hartwig, who was present at the Potsdam meeting. And then “Spiegel” reported on a summer party last year, at which Sellner and the right-wing extremist publisher Götz Kubitschek met AfD MPs, the AfD parliamentary group leader in the Berlin House of Representatives, Kristin Brinker, and the EU MPs and top candidates the AfD for the upcoming European elections, Maximilian Krah.
Party leader Weidel says that the AfD has no official appointments with the right-wing extremist Sellner. “It was a private meeting between personalities from different backgrounds.”
“Targeted financial support”
However, previous research shows that the AfD repeatedly recruits employees from circles of the “Identitarian Movement”. The rbb had reported, among other things, that a member of the “Identitarian Movement” from Austria was made press spokesman for the Brandenburg AfD faction.
Now new research from Austria shows another form of cooperation – between the AfD and the right-wing Austrian FPÖ with the “Identitarian” scene.
“We researched how close the AfD and FPÖ are to identity circles in Austria,” said Alexander Pollak from the Vienna human rights organization SOS Mitmensch. The organization has documented that there is targeted financial support for the “Identitarian Movement” through a scene magazine.
“There is an identity magazine Info-DIREKT that specifically promotes the right-wing extremist Martin Sellner. And we noticed that the FPÖ regularly places large-scale advertisements there. And then we also noticed that the AfD appears there “Some politicians place advertisements there and also create articles and also appear in interviews in this identity-oriented magazine,” reports Pollak.
AfDTop candidate Krah gives interviews
The editor of the magazine is an Austrian who comes from the neo-Nazi scene. In recent years, three AfD MEPs have placed paid election advertising in the magazine. The best-known of them is Maximilian Krah from Saxony, the AfD’s top candidate for the European elections in June.
Krah also appears in the online edition of Info-DIREKT. In video clips he gives interviews to the “Identitarian” magazine: “AfD’s top candidate in the next EU election: What are your most important issues now, Mr. Krah?” Answer: “Quite simple: The EU has the following agenda: climate, immigration and war. And the AfD has: prosperity, family, people and peace.”
Upon request of the ARD studios Vienna Krah replies via email. He writes that, like all of his parliamentary colleagues, he places advertisements in public media, paid for from the parliamentary group’s media budget. As far as he knows, the “Identitarian Movement” in Austria has been dissolved. According to investigations by the public prosecutor’s office, a few “Identitarian” accounts have been closed. Their symbols are banned in Austria. But the network still exists.
Oliver Soos, ARD Vienna, tagesschau, January 30, 2024 10:52 a.m