Enlarge image
MP Uwe Witt sees the center as "a real political opposition party"
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa
Out of the AfD, into the Center Party: Uwe Witt, a member of the Bundestag, is no longer independent.
Witt and the Center Party announced this together today.
Witt left the AfD parliamentary group in December.
In a letter he had given as the reason "border crossings" by AfD members.
Witt was the AfD's top candidate in Schleswig-Holstein in the federal elections in September.
He was already a member of the Bundestag in the last electoral term, at that time as a member of the AfD state association in North Rhine-Westphalia.
For two years he was chairman of the "Alternative Mitte" and had thus positioned himself against the dominance of the right-wing extremist "wing" around the Thuringian state chairman Björn Höcke.
In the Center Party, he had "found a real political opposition party," Witt said in a party statement.
The Secretary General of the German Center Party, Christian Otte, welcomed the accession: "The German Center Party has been delighted to finally be able to welcome a member of the Bundestag into its own ranks since 1957." rooted member of parliament found the way" to the Center Party, says Otte. Witt's accession was "a signal of departure" for the party.
According to SPIEGEL information, however, the Center Party apparently fears that Witt's accession could influence the political orientation in the medium term.
Witt's joining the party was an "absolute case-by-case decision," it said.
Should membership applications follow from the ranks of the AfD, these would be examined particularly carefully so that the center party would not be ideologically changed.
With reference to its founding in 1870, the small party describes itself as “Germany’s oldest party”.
Although some of the other parties had already been founded beforehand, they have changed their names over the course of history.
At the time, the party said it represented “the interests of the Catholic population”.
It was re-established after it was banned under National Socialism because the post-war CDU "was felt to be too right-wing".
The party did not take part in the federal elections last September.
fek/akm