The long-standing neo-Nazi party NPD changed its name to “Die Heimat”. It won a number of seats in the Brandenburg local elections. Now individual AfD local politicians want to work with it.
Three AfD politicians want to form joint factions with the right-wing extremist party Die Heimat in Brandenburg’s local parliaments – and are now to be excluded from the AfD. The Oberspreewald-Lausitz district in the south of Brandenburg on the border with Saxony was informed of the formation of a corresponding faction, a spokeswoman said.
There is also said to be a similar collaboration with the successor party to the NPD in the town of Lauchhammer in the same district. Brandenburg AfD chairman René Springer wants to exclude the three party members in question. Heimat is on the AfD’s incompatibility list of organizations with which it rules out any collaboration.
New group “Home and Future”
In the Oberspreewald-Lausitz district council, the AfD recently won 16 of the 50 seats in the local elections. 2 of these 16 district council members, the two AfD local politicians Bernd Dietrich and Peter Gröbe, now want to form a new “Home and Future” faction together with the representative of the right-wing extremist Heimat, Thomas Gürtler. This was stated by the district spokeswoman. Gürtler is to become chairman. The new district council will meet for the first time on July 4. The AfD in Brandenburg is classified by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist case. The “Spiegel” had reported.
In the Lauchhammer city council in the district in question, there will also be a new faction led by Heimat representative Gürtler with the same two AfD members and another AfD representative – under the name “AfDplus”. In Lauchhammer, the AfD won six seats and Heimat won one. Heimat had previously published a statement on the subject.
Springer, the AfD’s Brandenburg regional chairman, announced: “Due to the deliberate violation of member obligations and the significant violation of the party’s principles, I will seek to expel the three members from the party.” They also want to take legal action against the name “AfDplus.” The events had “very shocked” the party. He had assumed that something like this was not possible. The elected representatives had “certainly not reacted out of political conviction, but rather out of a certain sense of being overwhelmed by the mandate they had won.”
Source: Stern
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