AfD federal office: dispute with landlord escalated

In the dispute over the termination of the rental agreement for the AfD federal office in Berlin-Reinickendorf, there will be no amicable settlement. A quality negotiation before the Berlin Regional Court failed.

Now the court has to decide on the eviction lawsuit of the owner company. The AfD no longer wants to tolerate this as a tenant. A decision about the dispute will no longer exist this Friday, as judge Burkhard Niebisch said. He wants to announce it on September 26th.

The background to the dispute is the election party after the Bundestag election on February 23 in the courtyard of the office building. From the landlord’s point of view, the party violated the specifications. The AfD therefore terminated the owner company without notice. It demands an evacuation several months before the end of the rental contracts, which, according to the party, run until 2027.

The party rejects the allegations. “It is a purely economic argument: politically charged, legally instrumentalized and staged in the media – to the disadvantage of the alternative for Germany,” said Kay Gottschalk, deputy federal spokesman and member of the Bundestag, before the hearing.

The party showed again ready to compromise. “We offered a mediation,” said Gottschalk, who represented the party in court, before the negotiation. From the perspective of owner Lukas Hufnagl, the comparative proposals are not to be taken seriously, he spoke of a “farce”. The Austrian investor and the representatives of the AfD were partly heated in court.

From the judge’s point of view, the AfD could have been violated by the AfD. The question is whether this justifies the termination without notice. Property lawyer Malte Monjé argued that the relationship of trust was deeply destroyed. After not finding any other rooms for it, the party used the court for the election party against the agreement.