“This is highly dramatic”
Deportation plans by right-wing extremists and AfD officials are alarming other parties
Roland Hartwig, advisor to AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel, took part in the Potsdam meeting
© Odd Andersen / AFP
At a meeting in Potsdam, AfD politicians and other right-wing extremists planned the deportation of millions of people from Germany. Politicians from other parties react clearly.
The meeting of radical right circles with extremists and AfD officials in Potsdam have increased concerns among other parties about the growing influence of the Alternative for Germany. Leading politicians see an alarm signal and are calling for more commitment from citizens themselves.
At the meeting in a villa, the leader of the right-wing extremist Identitarian movement, the Austrian Martin Sellner, presented concept ideas for “remigration” – i.e. the return of immigrants, as he confirmed to the German Press Agency.
The FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr sees parallels to National Socialism. “The plans to expel millions of people are reminiscent of the darkest chapter in German history,” he wrote on the Internet platform X (formerly Twitter). The research led by the media company Correctiv “shows that the AfD deeply rejects democracy and our free basic order.”
“Don’t leave the field to misanthropes”
SPD general secretary Kevin Kühnert and Green party leader Britta Haßelmann called on citizens to get involved against the AfD. “I appeal to everyone who doesn’t want history to repeat itself: show your colors and don’t leave the field to misanthropes,” Kühnert told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
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Meeting fuels discussion about AfD ban
Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse (SPD) called for a ban on the AfD to be examined despite all the risks. “The AfD is organizing itself with enemies of democracy and subversives. That is highly dramatic,” he told the Berlin “Tagesspiegel”. If the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution defines the AfD as a largely right-wing extremist party, “the state must monitor it closely and examine a possible ban.” He did point out: “Banning a party has high hurdles and any process to do so would be exploited by the AfD for propaganda purposes. However, the sword of Damocles of a ban should remain hanging over the AfD.”
Roland Hartwig, advisor to party and faction leader Alice Weidel, took part in the Potsdam meeting, but according to a Weidel spokesman, she had no prior knowledge of Sellner’s appearance, although it was announced in the invitation. Saxony-Anhalt’s AfD parliamentary group leader Ulrich Siegmund was also there, as he confirmed to Correctiv, as was – according to his own statements only later – the Potsdam AfD district chairman Tim Krause.
Experts understand the term “remigration” to mean the return of people who have fled or immigrated to their countries of origin. Sellner wrote to the DPA in an email that his proposal included “not only deportations, but also local help, dominant culture and pressure to assimilate.” He suggested a “model city” that “could be leased and organized as a special economic zone in North Africa.”