As of: January 31, 2024, 11:22 a.m
By: Stephanie Munk
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The AfD's connection to a meeting of right-wing extremists in Potsdam is apparently closer than initially known.
New allegations reach all the way to the top of the federal government.
Potsdam/Dasing – Building an agency for right-wing influencers – according to research by the media company
Correctiv
, Arne Friedrich Mörig presented this goal at a “Potsdam meeting” that has been making headlines and counter-demonstrations for weeks.
Now there are new findings about the secret meeting of right-wing extremists: Arne Friedrich Mörig was apparently paid directly from funds from the AfD federal executive board for his lecture on founding the new right-wing influencer agency.
This is the result of research by WDR, NDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The payments to Mörig, son of the organizer of the “Potsdam meeting”, are said to come directly from the personal budget of AfD federal spokeswoman Alice Weidel.
The Potsdam secret meeting, at which, among other things, mass expulsions of unassimilated citizens from Germany were discussed, is moving closer to the top of the federal AfD.
They had previously downplayed the event as a private meeting.
How deeply is AfD federal spokeswoman Alice Weidel involved?
A meeting of right-wing extremists in the Potsdam country house Adlon (r.) caused a scandal.
© Imago (image montage)
Plans to found a right-wing influencer agency were presented to the AfD federal executive board
According to the research, Mörig is said to have received a contract from the AfD since the end of 2022 and was responsible for social media for the AfD federal executive board.
This contract is now said to have been terminated again.
According to the research, the 31-year-old is said to have presented his plans to found a right-wing influencer agency to the AfD federal executive board - after the Potsdam meeting, but before
Correctiv
had reported on it.
It is said that inquiries from
NDR
,
WDR
and
SZ
about the topic from Weidel, Hartwig, Mörig and the AfD have so far remained unanswered.
It was previously known that two AfD MPs and Weidel's personal colleague Roland Hartwig had taken part in the Potsdam meeting.
Weidel fired Hartwig shortly afterwards without explaining the reasons in more detail.
Members of the CDU and Values Union also took part in the meeting; party expulsion proceedings are underway against some of them and the CDU threatened harsh consequences.
Donations for Potsdam meetings should go to the AfD district executive's account
Another involvement of the AfD with the so-called “Düsseldorfer Runde”, which is said to have met regularly in the Potsdam villa, has now become known: organizer Gernot Mörig is said to have pointed out that donations should go to his brother-in-law's private account.
According to
WDR
,
NDR
and
SZ,
this brother-in-law is Thomas Grebien, who is a member of the AfD district executive in the Plön district in Schleswig-Holstein.
Grebien was also one of the founders of the “Heimattreuen Deutschen Jugend” (HDJ), which was banned in 2009.
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When asked, the district chairman of the AfD in Plön said that he was not aware of his deputy's former role in the HDJ or in the background of the Düsseldorf round.
He said nothing about the consequences. The Federal AfD, like Thomas Grebien, did not comment on it.
Right-wing extremist Martin Sellner is also said to have spoken in Dasing
The main speaker at the secret meeting in Potsdam was the Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner, head of the Identities Movement in Austria.
It has now become known that Sellner was apparently a guest in Dasing in Swabia around two weeks earlier to present his concept of remigration - i.e. the mass expulsion of people from Germany - in a hall.
The head of the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Burkhard Körner, said this in an interview with the
Augsburger Allgemeine
n. A spokesman for the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution confirmed to the paper that a post on social media showed Sellner as a speaker at the event on November 11th in Dasing shows.
AfD MPs Halemba and Schmid apparently attended a meeting in Dasing
Two AfD MPs are also said to have been present at the meeting in Dasing.
According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, this can be found in another Internet article.
According to research by the
Augsburger Allgemeine
, these are said to be the two controversial Bavarian state parliament members Franz Schmid and Daniel Halemba.
Both can be recognized in a photo on social media, it is said.
Halemba has already made headlines because the public prosecutor's office is investigating him on suspicion of incitement to hatred and the use of National Socialist symbols.
There was even talk of him being arrested directly in the Bavarian state parliament - and was seen by AfD parliamentary group vice-president Martin Böhm as a good opportunity to discredit state parliament President Ilse Aigner, as he himself admitted.
The AfD state parliament member Schmid, in turn, is said to have visited a disco in Greding after the AfD party conference and to have chanted Nazi slogans in a group, as can be seen on a video.
Schmid denies the accusation.
Thuringia's AfD wants to talk about the expulsion of foreigners in the state parliament
Meanwhile, the Thuringian AfD parliamentary group wants to speak in a current hour in the state parliament about its controversial concept for deporting people from Germany.
She applied for the current hour under the title “Start remigration from Thuringia instead of demonizing it,” as the parliamentary managing director of the AfD parliamentary group, Torben Braga, announced on Tuesday.
When right-wing extremists use the term, they usually mean that large numbers of people of foreign origin should leave the country - even under duress.
According to Braga, AfD MP Stefan Möller is scheduled to speak.
Along with Björn Höcke, Möller is also co-chairman of the Thuringian AfD regional association, which has been classified and monitored by the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution as confirmed right-wing extremist since 2021.
In the past few days, hundreds of thousands have demonstrated in many cities against right-wing extremism and the AfD.
(smu/dpa)