Ex-AfD man joins new party - old group celebrates comeback in the Bundestag

Created: 01/19/2022 10:33 am

Uwe Witt speaks at a plenary session in the German Bundestag (archive image) © Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa

At the end of 2021, an AfD deputy announced that he was leaving the party.

Now he is a member elsewhere - and will represent this party again after a long time in the Bundestag.

Berlin - Some may already know the Center Party from history class.

Now a member of parliament who has left the AfD and the AfD parliamentary group has made it known: He, Uwe Witt, says he is now a member of the Center Party.

"I am happy to be able to make Christian-social and humane politics in the German Bundestag for the Center Party in the future," said Witt on Tuesday at an online press conference. It is an opposition party that stands firmly on the ground of the Basic Law. The Center Party emerged in the 19th century to represent the interests of the Catholic population and played a major role up until the Weimar Republic. Today it claims to have around 300 members.

The Secretary General of the German Center Party, Christian Otte, reacted to the accession: "The German Center Party has been delighted to finally be able to welcome a member of the Bundestag back into its own ranks since 1957.

We are pleased that in Uwe Witt, a Christian-social member of parliament who is rooted in democracy has found his way to us.”

Center party back in the Bundestag – Witt declares AfD exit

Shortly before the turn of the year, Witt had declared his resignation from the AfD and its parliamentary group in the Bundestag, citing AfD members as having “crossed borders”. The Bavarian MP Johannes Huber had also resigned - for other reasons. In the press conference, Witt, who was considered a representative of the moderate current in the party, explained why he turned his back on the AfD. He "doesn't want to wash a lot of dirty laundry," he said, but the whole thing ended up being a small settlement with the AfD.

The 62-year-old from Schleswig-Holstein reported, among other things, on a lecture event last August in which he took part.

A team recommended by the AfD provided security, which later turned out to be related to a right-wing terrorist group.

He was also "deeply shocked" that MP Thomas Helferich from North Rhine-Westphalia, who does not deny having described himself as the "friendly face of the NS" in an older chat, came to the Bundestag via an AfD ticket .

Ex-AfD MP reports on scenes from the Bundestag

After concerns from MPs, including Witt, Helferich decided not to apply for membership in the AfD parliamentary group and is now a non-attached MP. The discussion within the parliamentary group on the subject shook him "to the core" of his conviction that there were "no sympathizers with right-wing extremists, if not right-wing extremists, in the parliamentary group," said Witt. He expects that Helferich will be included in the parliamentary group in the course of the year.

The ex-AfDler also reported on a meeting in the Bundestag with a member of his former party who "had visibly attached the badge of a right-wing extremist association" to his jacket lapel.

"At that moment, I felt as if my legs were going to buckle.

I suddenly had a lump of ice in my stomach.” When asked, Witt did not give the name of the MP or which association it was about.

MP leaves AfD - and now explains his motives

He also mentioned the reports of radical statements by Bavarian AfD politicians in an internal Telegram chat and also criticized "illegal behavior" in the employment of parliamentary group employees, without explaining this in more detail.

Basically, Witt criticized the course of his ex-party: Some AfD greats have managed to make any conservative policy almost impossible with “completely exaggerated actions” in the last four years.

"The overall approval of the population is becoming smaller and smaller, because people let themselves be carried away by fact-oriented politics and populist circus acts." He did not name any specific names.

The step of leaving the party and parliamentary group was unavoidable for him and the logical consequence, he said.

Some former party friends now called him a traitor.

After Witt and Huber announced their resignation, AfD co-head of parliamentary group Tino Chrupalla called on them to renounce their mandate in the Bundestag so that AfD politicians could move up.

The parliamentary group currently has 80 members, up from 93 at the beginning of the last legislative period.

Witt said you could ask for a lot.

The scientific service of the Bundestag has clearly checked legally that a mandate is always personal and never party-related.