Enlarge image
AfD honorary chairman Alexander Gauland (election evening on June 6th in Saxony-Anhalt): "Spoken in person" with Neumann
Photo: SEAN GALLUP / POOL / EPA
The press spokesman has not even been listed on the website of the Brandenburg AfD parliamentary group.
There is a mobile phone number, landline and e-mail address, but the name of the contact does not appear.
Marvin Neumann has been working for the parliamentary group for some time.
What is remarkable about the personnel: Neumann had hit the headlines nationwide only six weeks ago and, following racist comments on social media, resigned as the newly elected co-federal chairman of the “Junge Alternative” (JA), the AfD party youth. At the same time, he also left the AfD itself. That he is now working as press spokesman for the Brandenburg parliamentary group was only made known this week through a report by the TV station rbb.
A report by the internal AfD working group "Protection of the Constitution" led to Neumann's political end as JA chief, which in April sent the AfD federal executive board a collection of screenshots with Neumann's statements on Twitter and Facebook. This contained a series of statements that the working group criticized. "Other white Europeans or their descendants can (d) become Germans, but not black Africans," Neumann wrote in December 2020. In another place it was said that no "Black German and Europeans," they were "at best, part of society and have certain nationalities, but they are not part of a traditional, authentic> European (n) identity
<
".
Neumann described homosexuality as "perverse, infantile-vulgar decadence", "culture" must be "liberalized", the "Chinese model" is "roughly the most sensible form of sustainable state, economic and social order".
Worry about observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution
The AfD working group for the protection of the constitution, which is supposed to prevent observation of the federal party by the protection of the constitution with preventive measures, was alarmed by Neumann's statements.
Its announcements are "grist to the mill" of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution ("VS") and "counteract the work of the entire party to prevent the VS from observing the AfD to an unimaginable degree," it warned.
But Neumann's resignation at the beginning of May as JA co-boss and his simultaneous exit from the AfD are one thing - professionally they did not lead to any consequences in the AfD parliamentary group in Brandenburg. He is still active for the AfD MPs. The employment relationship with the parliamentary group already existed before the tweets surfaced in April, Neumann and the parliamentary group chairman Hans-Christoph Berndt told the rbb. A written request from SPIEGEL has not yet been answered by either of them.
It is obvious that Neumann works in the parliamentary group.
The Brandenburg AfD parliamentary group had moved far to the right under its former chairman Andreas Kalbitz.
Kalbitz, whose AfD membership was canceled last year by a resolution brought about by Co-Bundeschef Jörg Meuthen in the federal executive committee, continues to sit as a non-party member of the parliamentary group.
Even after Kalbitz's political retirement, the course did not change: his successor Berndt, who has led the parliamentary group since the end of October last year, is described by the head of the Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a "proven right-wing extremist."
In addition, the entire AfD regional association has been treated by the secret service as a suspected right-wing extremist case since last summer.
The fact that Neumann continues to speak for this parliamentary group is controversial within the AfD federal leadership, but his work has not yet been publicly criticized. On the contrary, Neumann has a prominent advocate who has no problem with him and who speaks out. The AfD honorary chairman Alexander Gauland, who once headed the Brandenburg regional association and the parliamentary group, considers Neumann's employment to be acceptable - despite his racist tweets and statements.
"I spoke to Mr. Neumann personally, which not everyone in our party does when someone gets into trouble," Gauland told SPIEGEL.
Neumann regrets what he wrote on social media at the time: "The young man just messed up, and that should be left at that." If the parliamentary group was of the opinion, "Neumann does a good job for you as a press spokesman, so I do." I respect that «.
Berndt and the parliamentary press spokesman Neumann can obviously build on Gauland.
He does not intend, says the AfD honorary chairman and AfD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, "to run around as a moral apostle on this matter and to make regulations for my former parliamentary group."