AfD co-founder and economics professor Bernd Lucke has finished his second lecture at the University of Hamburg prematurely after about 45 minutes - at his own request. So it reported students who sat in the lecture hall, the SPIEGEL. Before Lucke broke off the lecture, therefore, about 20 demonstrators had penetrated into the lecture hall.
They huddled past security personnel outside the building's doors and knocked on the doors of the lecture theater. Accordingly, some demonstrators pushed employees aside to gain access to the hall. In doing so, they chanted allegations like "no right to Nazi propaganda".
According to eyewitnesses, Lucke ended the lecture and left the hall through a back entrance. As reported by the German Press Agency, he drove off afterwards with a car.
Personal safety at no time endangered
In a press release of the university, the information is essentially confirmed: After the lecture could take place properly for about an hour, would have numerous violators - sometimes hooded - enforced entry, it says.
"At the moment of the disturbance the lecture on the part of the University of Hamburg according to the safety concept was stopped immediately," writes the university. Luckes personal security and that of the students was never endangered. It is also emphasized: "The disturbances in the lectures of Professor Lucke strongly condemn the Bureau in the strongest terms."
Hamburg's Senator for Science Senator Katharina Fegebank from the Greens also agreed with this: "I strongly condemn today's attempt by apparently alien university students to storm the lecture of Professor Lucke, which is wrong in its purest form," she said ,
"I am convinced that universities must be party-politically neutral and not the stage for party politics - regardless of which political color," wrote Fegebank. The university had set itself a set of rules to take care of it. "The demarcation may not always be easy in a particular case," said the minister. "However, I expect that the university administration will ensure that these rules are adhered to and that the impression given is not double standards."
AStA: "Such a person does not belong to any university"
Already at his first lecture after his return to university a week ago, Lucke had been abused, physically harassed and prevented from speaking. Participants in the protest included members of the "Antifascist Action" (Antifa).
Lucke's return to university had met with harsh criticism from many Hamburg students. With his "bourgeois façade, Lucke paved the way for the AfD to become an inhumane and racist party," said the chairman of the General Student Committee (AStA), Karim Kuropka, the German Press Agency. "Such a person does not belong to any university."
Peaceful protests behind the building
At the second lecture on Wednesday, several dozen students behind the building had peacefully protested against Lucke. The university had closely coordinated and expanded its security measures with the police. There were admission checks before the lecture, so that only registered students should have access to the lecture hall.
The economist and Eurokritiker Lucke was instrumental in the founding of the AfD in 2013 and one of its first federal spokesman. In 2014 he had taken leave of absence from the University of Hamburg to change to the European Parliament as a professional politician for the AfD.
After Lucke had been replaced in 2015 in the dispute over a stronger national-conservative orientation of AfD by Frauke Petry as a national spokesman, he had left the party. As a result, Lucke had repeatedly denounced that there are racist and right-wing extremist tendencies in the AfD.
Luckes' attempts to gain a foothold in politics with the Alliance for Advancement and Emergence Alliance (ALFA), which he later renamed Liberal Conservative Reformers (LKR), failed. In the European elections at the end of May, the LKR with top candidate Lucke only got 0.1 percent of the vote.
