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AfD logo in the Bavarian state parliament
Photo: Sven Hoppe / picture alliance / dpa
"Alternative News Group Bavaria": This is the name of an internal Telegram chat group, the content of which, according to its own statements, was leaked exclusively to reporters from "Bayerischer Rundfunk" (BR).
In the group, in which, according to the report, 16 of the 18 Bavarian state parliament members and eleven of the twelve members of the Bundestag, as well as 10 of 13 members of the AfD state executive elected in October, are represented, numerous extremist slogans and calls were exchanged between the end of 2017 and mid-2021 - including revolutionary fantasies and the rejection of elections.
The Bavarian state parliament member Anne Cyron wrote in the AfD-internal chat at the end of last year: "I think that we will not get out of this number without civil war." wrote in the group: "Without overthrow and revolution we can no longer change course here." According to the report, he complains about the "ruling criminals" and states: "Elections no longer help anyway."
"We need the total revolution"
Georg Hock, member of the state board of the AfD in Bavaria, reacts according to the report of the BR to Cyron's post and that of the Upper Bavarian district chairman with the words: "absolute approval".
The district chairman from Upper Bavaria is said to have become even more clear a few days later: “We need a total revolution.
All this politics would have to be set on fire. "
According to BR, one of the administrators of the group is the new state chairman of the Bavarian AfD, Stephan Protschka.
Protschka therefore told the BR that he couldn't comment on the overturning fantasies because he was no longer reading the group: "It is muted," said Protschka.
According to the research, the member of the Bundestag posted dozens of posts in the chat in 2021.
Protschka also refers to freedom of expression in relation to the BR: "If people throw something at each other internally, it is also part of the free democratic basic order that people have different opinions." the revolutionary thought, Protschka says, according to BR: "We clarify things like this internally in the state executive or in the relevant bodies and certainly not with the press."
Another administrator who, after BR research, has occasionally deleted content in the group is Johannes Huber, a member of the Bundestag from Freising.
He did not want to comment on his role and the content of the chat on BR request.
In the chat, Huber writes: "This group has freedom of expression."
Messages hostile to Islam and xenophobia were also exchanged in the chat group, according to BR.
For example, in the summer of 2018, a current European parliamentarian proposed to the AfD to put a pig's head in front of a mosque.
According to the BR, several AfD politicians do not respond to requests
According to the research, several chat members also took a radical position on the subject of corona measures and vaccinations.
Accordingly, the Bundestag member Peter Boehringer wrote in March 2021 that he saw the chance of "closing ranks with 30 to 50 percent vaccine skeptics or 40 million people out there."
The Lindau AfD politician Rainer Rothfuss writes about "vaccination dictatorship" and "vaccination apartheid" at the same time.
The vaccinations against the coronavirus are a »genocide against the rich Europeans and North Americans who can afford the vaccination." Rothfuß recently became vice-chairman of the Bavarian AfD.
According to the BR, when asked, Boehringer, a member of the Bundestag, did not make any specific statements about the chance he mentioned of "joining forces with vaccine skeptics."
In chat groups, something is typed quickly, the AfD man is said to have replied.
He could not find his statement in the chat process, but he admitted that at that time "of course" one had to warn against the vaccination.
State Vice Rainer Rothfuß as well as the member of the state parliament Anne Cyron, the state board member Georg Hock and the member of the Bundestag Johannes Huber did not respond to BR inquiries, according to the information.
The Upper Bavarian district chairman, who spread revolutionary fantasies, denies being a member of the group, according to the BR.
He also declines an interview.
According to BR, the AfD state chairman Stephan Protschka sent an email to all members of the Bayern-AfD immediately after the interview with the broadcaster: "We urgently recommend that you say NOTHING if you get in touch and end the conversation!"
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