Thuringia
Man in right scene look distributed balloons to daycare
In the district of Sonneberg, an AfD candidate won the district election. photo
© Martin Schutt/dpa
A man with clothes worn in the right-wing scene distributes balloons at a daycare center in the district of Sonneberg. A video of this is making waves on the internet and leading to speculation about a connection with the AfD.
A man distributes blue balloons to day care centers over a fenceChildren in the Thuringian municipality of Föritztal. What the children and the teachers don’t see: “Wehrmacht wieder mit” is written on the back of the man’s T-shirt and “voluntary deportation helper” can be read on the rear window of the car from which the man is getting the balloons. The man also wears trousers in the imperial colors of black, white and red.
The video was widely shared and commented on online media on Tuesday. According to the Thuringian state parliamentarian Katharina König-Preuss (left), the video is from Monday. The community that runs the daycare center emphasized that the man was the father of one of the daycare children. He is there every day and is known and asked beforehand whether he could distribute the balloons.
The balloons that the man hands out in the video are not printed. In the trunk, however, there are a few balloons whose logo at least resembles that of the AfD. Blue is also the party color of the AfD.
A day earlier, the AfD in Sonneberg, ten years after its founding, had conquered a top municipal office for the first time in Germany. The AfD candidate Robert Stuhlmann won the district election with 52.8 percent against his CDU competitor Jürgen Köpper, who got 47.2 percent. In Thuringia, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies it as right-wing extremist.
Police: No suspicion of a crime
The mayor of Föritztal, Andreas Meusel, described the incident as an “attack” and condemned it. “In particular, I refrain from the fact that the employees of the kindergarten and the kindergarten are pushed or pushed into a certain corner by deliberately bringing about and secretly filming this situation,” he said.
Thuringia’s Minister of Education Helmut Holter (left) wrote on Twitter: “The fact that a neo-Nazi is apparently aiming at our little ones without being asked and targeting kindergarten children is a serious attack.”
After tips, the police had turned on Tuesday. “There is currently no suspicion of a criminal offence, but there could be several administrative offenses,” said a police officer from the Sonneberg Police Inspectorate. The imprint of the T-shirt – also in combination with the color of the trousers – has no criminal relevance, the police said. That has already been checked. Such shirts are freely available for sale. In the case of the imprint on the car, it is also not the first time that there are indications of this.
Man from video at Stuhlmann’s election party
The man is therefore no stranger to the Föritztal, which has 8,500 inhabitants, and is not unknown to the local AfD either. “The man is not a member of the AfD,” said AfD state spokesman Stefan Möller, referring to information from the local association. However, the man had previously been “conspicuous” and is described by the local association as “problematic”. In the past, he was also at AfD stands and at Stuhlmann’s election party on Sunday. However, he did not wear any clothes like in the video at the party. There he “ran on” with Stuhlmann and the AfD country chief Björn Höcke. According to Möller, neither Stuhlmann nor Höcke personally knows the man.
Of the 7,230 eligible voters in Föritztal, 65.6 percent took part in the runoff election on Sunday, according to information from the office of the state returning officer. There too, Stuhlmann was ahead, albeit very narrowly, with only around 20 votes.