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Former party press spokesman Christian Lüth (center) and AfD politicians Alexander Gauland (left) and Jörg Meuthen (right) at the federal press conference (spring 2018)
Photo: Stefan Boness / Ipon / imago images / IPON
Christian Lüth's official work for the AfD is history.
The former press spokesman for the parliamentary group was recently dismissed without notice.
The reason: In secretly recorded TV recordings by the station ProSieben, he made fables about the "gassing" and "shooting" of migrants.
Sentences that the 43-year-old then described in a statement as "not excusable".
Lüth, father of four children, now has to look for new career prospects.
It shouldn't be easy, his name got through the media and even made headlines on international channels like CNN.
Anyone who was employed by the AfD has a hard time in the free job market anyway.
Christian Lüth fell deeply.
Once in the FDP, he joined the AfD in 2013, worked as a party spokesman until 2018 and was a close associate of today's honorary chairman Alexander Gauland for many years.
The matter is not over for the AfD with the dismissal, even if you now try with great zeal to emphasize that you had no idea of anything.
Only this week the parliamentary group announced with a view to Lüth's inhuman remarks that the board of directors had "at no time" had information that "went beyond the character of vague rumors, contradicting statements and unproven accusations" and "which justified earlier action would have ".
Did Lüth know too much?
Lüth recently had trouble with the judiciary.
According to a report by "Welt am Sonntag", the Berlin public prosecutor has filed a criminal complaint alleging violence against a woman that is not defined in detail.
Lüth says the ad is the "campaign of revenge" by a woman who "offered herself to the AfD and me" and was disappointed.
But that's not all: According to SPIEGEL information, Lüth was about to be released for assault on trial.
Lüth had apparently clashed with a cyclist, and the proceedings were temporarily suspended in exchange for a monetary requirement.
The ex-spokesman is also being investigated for a suspected drunk driving (read the details here).
The Lüth case also plays a role in the power struggle between the supporters of co-party leader Jörg Meuthen and his opponents.
Rumors are circulating in the party that Meuthen, a member of the European Parliament in Brussels, did not want to let Lüth - like others in the AfD leadership - professionally fall into nothing.
Until Lüth's dismissal without notice, efforts had been made in the parliamentary group leadership to keep him on staff.
Before he finally had to leave, AfD parliamentary group leader Gauland had already released him from his post as press spokesman in April after Lüth's chat history with a young woman appeared in which he had described himself as a "fascist".
Former AfD co-founder Konrad Adam, who announced his departure at the beginning of 2021 because of the legal course in the party, recently suspected on ZDF that Lüth was initially released and not dismissed because he "simply knew too much".
They then "waited six months until the explosive material cooled down a bit".
In fact, it was considered, among other things, to continue employing Lüth as "media coordinator" for the AfD parliamentary group - which was ultimately not implemented, also because the parliamentary group did not have a board decision.
In the middle of September the parliamentary group finally announced without further details that Lüth would "take on another task within the parliamentary group".
But there was, according to research by SPIEGEL, another variant - a job in Brussels.
Accordingly, Lüth was there as a representative in the "Brussels contact office" of the AfD parliamentary group.
A position that is paid for by the parliamentary group in Berlin and has not yet been filled, as a spokesman confirmed.
The Meuthen opponents now want to use the whispering about the location in Brussels in order not to let the co-party leader escape completely unscathed in the affair.
An upset there recently caused an appearance on ZDF, in which he explained why he is not running for the Bundestag: It gives him "an independence" that makes it easier for him in Brussels to tackle party fate in a more focused way "than if I were in the Bundestag parliamentary group sit that currently has a problem in the Lüth case, for example ".
The last sentence offended the Meuthen opponents.
They understood it as a distancing: from the Berlin problems with which the parliamentary group leaders Alice Weidel and Gauland, but also co-party leader Tino Chrupalla had to do in the Lüth case.
"Meuthen is now slimming down," said one of the party leaders to SPIEGEL.
Meuthen had "at least not resisted when it came to the question of whether Lüth could get the position in the Brussels contact office", so the allegation.
Meuthen defends itself against rumors
The fact is: During Lüth's exemption as faction press spokesman, Meuthen met with him in the summer in an Italian restaurant in Berlin, which both Meuthen and Lüth themselves confirmed.
Lüth says that, as he remembers, the Brussels contact office was not the focus of the evening meeting, at that time such considerations were "too early".
Meuthen knows that in the Lüth case, a buck has started in the party and parliamentary group that is also aimed at him.
"I neither actively supported nor passively approved the proposal to send Mr Lüth to the parliamentary group's contact office in Brussels, but said clearly that I thought it was wrong," he told SPIEGEL.
"Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth."
What is clear, however, and this is confirmed by many interlocutors in SPIEGEL: The "Brussels Contact Office" was a variant of the group's top plan to keep Lüth.
Lüth also admits this, including the internally circulated statement that he did not want to take up the post - because of his family in Berlin and the travel activities associated with Brussels.
In the end, the complex job search for Lüth was no longer pursued, at the latest after the publication of the secretly recorded TV recording.
At least this chapter is over.
It is far from the power struggle.
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