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Erika Steinbach
Photo: Florian Gaertner / photothek / IMAGO
The former CDU member of the Bundestag Erika Steinbach joins the AfD.
She announced this on Friday evening via Twitter and also confirmed this to SPIEGEL.
Among the reasons she gave were the "indisputable handling of the media and politics with the AfD", but above all the "incomprehensible resignation of Jörg Meuthens" from the party, which was "deliberately destructive" and a "slap in the face" to the party supporters.
The AfD had "taken a rise that is unique in the history of the Federal Republic," Steinbach added in her tweet, describing the party program as "deeply bourgeois."
And further: "Extremist and anti-constitutional efforts" have "no place in the AfD", according to Steinbach this has "been clearly shown" in recent months.
Steinbach currently heads the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation.
In 2017 she left the CDU.
The conservative politician justified the step at the time primarily with her criticism of Angela Merkel's refugee policy.
Before that, Steinbach, born in 1943, had been President of the Association of Expellees for a long time.
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