Germany: AfD disputes 'remigration' investigative report

Various figures from the German and Austrian far-right scene, including some noteworthy members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, attended a low-key meeting in a Potsdam hotel to discuss topics including a "remigration" plan that would permit the deportation of people who had moved to Germany, an investigative report by the German non-profit research institute Correctiv published on Wednesday alleged. 

That the meeting took place at the Landhaus Aldon guesthouse (pictured above) is relatively uncontroversial, but precisely what was discussed remains highly disputed. Participants said their recollections of the event differed from the published report. 

'Remigration' plan presented by Austrian far-right figurehead Martin Sellner

The report said Austrian identitarian movement activist Martin Sellner was among the main speakers at the event, which it observed with a combination of hidden cameras, witness accounts and undercover journalists staking out the hotel.

Correctiv's reported that Sellner put forward a "masterplan" on a "remigration" scheme that would involve identifying people he believed were a burden on society and encouraging them to leave Germany or deporting them. According to Correctiv, this could include naturalized German citizens.

This last point is noteworthy for two reasons: Germany's AfD has spoken about "remigration" plans, often a euphemism for forcing people to leave the country, of its own in the past but had said it was out of the question for people with German citizenship. Furthermore, given German citizenship rules, the vast majority of naturalized citizens will have given up their other passport to get a German one, meaning that revoking German citizenship would effectively render them stateless. 

The report also said that an idea was floated to send people to a "model state" in North Africa, noting how Germany's Nazi party once discussed a similar plan for sending Jews to Madagascar. 

Sellner, however, disputed the report's account of his speech, claiming it had been shortened and distorted.  

"I made very clear that no distinctions can be made between citizens — that there can be no second-class citizens — and that all remigration measures have to be legal," he told the Reuters news agency in an e-mail.

"Unassimilated citizens like Islamists, gangsters, and welfare cheats should be pushed to adapt through a policy of standards and assimilation," he added, saying that could include incentives for voluntary return.

Senior AfD figures on hand, but in 'private capacity'

Robert Hartwig, once a fairly senior AfD member of German parliament who has become a party strategist with close ties to AfD leader Alice Weidel since stepping down from parliament, was in attendance. A senior member of the AfD's chapter for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, was also at the meeting, as was Bundestag federal parliament member Gerrit Huy.

The AfD confirmed Hartwig's attendance but said neither he nor the party was aware of Sellner's presence beforehand. It also said the issues Sellner purportedly discussed were not party policy. 

"The AfD won't change its position on immigration policy because of a single opinion at a non-AfD meeting," the party said. It said Hartwig was "simply presenting a social media project following an invitation." 

According to Correctiv's account, the politicians were also fundraising in an unofficial capacity at the event, which itself purportedly requested large donations from all attendees.

Who else was there? 

Perhaps the most notable name listed in attendance was that of Alexander von Bismarck, albeit not because of modern-day notoriety. He is a descendant of Germany's 19th-century founding chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

The report also named entrepreneur Hans Christian Limmer, part owner of the burger and snack chain Hans im Glück, as one of the participants. 

Limmer said later that he had distanced himself "unmistakeably" from the concept of remigration portrayed by Correctiv and that he had not been present for that particular speech. 

Nevertheless, Hans im Glück said in a press release published on Wednesdaythat he had offered his resignation in a bid to limit any fallout, and the company had decided to accept it. 

The report also mentioned two members of the opposition Christian Democrats who were allegedly allied with the Junge Werte Union, a splinter group within the party tied to the former head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, who is rumored to be planning to launch a party of his own.

The Verein Deutsche Sprache (VDS, "German Language Association"), an organization lobbying for the preservation and promotion of the German language, issued a statement on Wednesday saying it "distances itself from the private actions of its board member Silke Schröder," who was among those present.

Parts of AfD, polling second among German parties, already under observation by authorities

The report made waves in Germany in part because the AfD is faring better than ever in opinion polls, polling somewhere just above 20% in most surveys, making it a clear but distant second power nationally, behind the center-right CDU/CSU. This comes as all three parties in the current coalition struggle.

But beyond that, parts of the AfD are already under observation by German domestic intelligence agencies as a possible extremist case, which in extremis could even lead to the party being outlawed — although this has only ever happened once on the national level, to the German Communist Party (KPD) at the height of early Cold War tensions in 1956. 

Germany's domestic security agency is monitoring the AfD as a whole on suspicion of being an extremist group. Three state chapters of the party, all in the east in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, have already been classified as such. The party's national youth group, the Junge Alternative (Young Alternative), is as well.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser responded to the report on Wednesday, albeit without clarifying exactly which participants she was condemning. 

"This ethnic ideology goes against the foundations of our democracy," she said, using an adjective coined and subverted by the Nazis ("völkisch").

"Human dignity shall be inviolable," Faeser said, quoting Article 1 of Germany's post-war constitution. "For every human."

msh/sms (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

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