Icon: enlarge
Ex-parliamentary group spokesman Christian Lüth (2017 in the Bundestag)
Photo: Jens Jeske / www.jens-jeske.de / imago images / Jens Jeske
Christian Lüth had been silent in the past few days and did not respond to inquiries from the media.
Now the 43-year-old is trying to find an explanation for his inhuman statements that made headlines at the beginning of the week - nationally and even worldwide.
The long-time spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group was secretly filmed for a documentary on the TV station Pro Sieben about right-wing extremism in Germany, as he talked to a blogger from the right-wing scene with his contacts to the AfD parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland in a Berlin bar boasts and, among other things, rants that migrants can be "shot" or "gassed".
And: "The worse Germany is doing, the better for the AfD (read the background and statements here in detail).
Lüth's name was not mentioned in the film, but was revealed by "Zeit" at the beginning of the week before the show was broadcast.
In a written statement that SPIEGEL has, Lüth initially admits that he is the man on the Pro Sieben footage.
He writes - and at the same time tries to put things into perspective: "In this conversation there were hideous and inexcusable remarks that were characterized by a heated, ironic and exaggerated choice of words."
What exactly did Lüth say?
Among other things:
"We discussed that for a long time with Gauland: The worse Germany is, the better for the AfD (...). If everything went well now (...), the AfD would be three percent. We don't want to. That's why we have to consider a tactic. "
Lüth's interlocutor asks once:
"Most of all, does it sound like it is in your interest that more migrants come?"
Lüth answers:
"Yes. Because then the AfD will be better. We can still shoot them all afterwards. That's not an issue at all. Or gas, or whatever you want. I don't care!"
Lüth now claims in his statement that anyone who knows him better knows that these statements do not correspond to his "convictions".
Lüth, who once belonged to the FDP before he started working for the AfD in 2013, also stated that he grew up in Latin America, lived there for almost 20 years, worked in Cairo for a long time and came into contact with "many different cultures" .
He has a liberal background and is "not only firmly convinced that every country, including Germany, needs migration", only "controlled and across safe borders".
For this reason he rejects the accusations that he is "right-wing extremist or extreme right-wing extremist, xenophobic or hostile to migrants".
He also asserts that neither the parliamentary group nor the party executive had knowledge of the content "of this conversation until the reporting" nor had "the content been discussed in any way beforehand".
With this he wants to protect his sponsor Gauland in particular.
The declaration will probably not allow Lüth to return to the AfD parliamentary group.
As SPIEGEL learned from circles, the termination without notice, decided by the parliamentary group on Monday and then approved by the parliamentary group, took place in the past few days.
This is not the first time that Lüth has made headlines with a possible lack of distance from National Socialism.
In the spring he was given leave of absence from Gauland as a group spokesman.
Because before, among other things, screenshots of a message exchange between Lüth and a woman appeared, where the spokesman at the time described himself as a "fascist" and referred to the "Aryan" descent of his alleged grandfather.
Lüth had survived all changes in personnel and direction in the AfD since 2013.
It was only in mid-September that the AfD parliamentary group announced that Lüth would "take on another task within the parliamentary group".
Shortly before, the SPIEGEL had reported that Lüth should be given the post of "media coordinator" in the press office - which, however, was noted with astonishment in parts of the parliamentary group, as the parliamentary group's executive committee had not yet decided on his use.
Icon: The mirror
