German far right’s eastern stronghold has clear
view on spy allegation: ‘It’s a witch hunt’
Alternative for Germany’s core supporters are sticking
with the party despite allegations of dodgy links to Russia and China.
For many of the party’s faithful, the allegations
surrounding Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s lead candidate for the European
election, hardly matter. |
MAY 1, 2024
4:00 AM CET
BY JAMES
ANGELOS
MAGDEBURG,
Germany — Will the sensational allegations of espionage and dubious links to
Russia and China implicating politicians of the far-right Alternative for
Germany (AfD) be the decisive blow that ends the party’s long ascent in German
politics?
For many of
the party’s faithful, at least, the answer is clear: The allegations,
particularly those surrounding Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s lead candidate for
the European election, hardly matter.
If
anything, they may only deepen their loyalty.
That was
glaringly evident at a recent party gathering in the city of Magdeburg, located
in a part of the country — in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the former East
Germany — where some of the party’s most extreme politicians and most fervent
supporters are based.
As people
in the crowd sat at long tables, sipping on beer and slurping asparagus soup,
Martin Reichardt, a former military officer in a tan suit who heads the AfD in
Saxony-Anhalt and serves as one of its lawmakers in the federal parliament,
opened his comments with a few words about Krah, who cancelled his
participation at the event in the wake of the allegations.
“We
would’ve loved to have him here,” Reichardt said to applause from the crowd. “I
think it’s particularly important in these times that when someone is being
targeted by the establishment media, it’s very important that the party shows
solidarity and that we stick together and don’t let the establishment destroy
us.”
A few days
earlier, police arrested Krah’s assistant over allegations he was a spy for
China. Soon after that, public prosecutors in Dresden said they had launched
preliminary investigations into Krah on the suspicion he’d accepted payments
from Russia and China “for his work as an MEP.”
For the
AfD, the allegations could have hardly come at a worse time.
For years,
even as the party became increasingly extreme, its popularity continued to
rise. Near the end of last year, the AfD hit a new polling high of 23 percent.
What was once unthinkable — that a far-right party could take power in Germany
for the first time since the Nazis — suddenly appeared not entirely far
fetched.
But
beginning in January, the AfD began to slip. The turning point came after an
investigative report by Correctiv revealed AfD politicians were present at a
meeting of right-wing extremists in which a “master plan” to deport migrants
and “unassimilated citizens” was discussed. That news sparked massive protests
against the AfD across Germany.
Even before
the latest allegations surrounding Krah, the party’s No. 2 candidate for the
European election, Petr Bystron, was already facing allegations that he
accepted payments from a source linked to the Kremlin. Both the candidates deny
wrongdoing.
But as the
event in Magdeburg showed, the AfD’s base of support — particularly in the
party’s strongholds in eastern Germany — is so deeply entrenched that the
latest allegations are unlikely to be a breaking point for the party.
The AfD’s base of support — particularly in the
party’s strongholds in eastern Germany — is so deeply entrenched that the
latest allegations are unlikely to be a breaking point for the party. |
Rather, the
party’s core supporters live in something of a parallel world, viewing Krah as
a victim of a grand conspiracy involving the mainstream media and a German
state that seeks to undermine its own people and use every instrument possible
to stop the AfD — the people’s saviors-in-waiting — from taking power. The only
proper response, they therefore believe, is to hit back at the establishment.
‘Even the Stasi wouldn’t have allowed it’
After his
opening comments, Reichardt briefly changed tack, turning his attention to
boilerplate themes for the far right, lamenting the “deindustrialization and
destruction of Germany” due to “leftist-green” climate policies, and then
attacking the coalition government for passing a law to make it easier for
people to legally change their gender while Germany’s “external borders are
being stormed by hordes of asylum seekers.”
Next to
Reichardt sat Oliver Kirchner, a bald man with thick-framed glasses who serves
as the head of the AfD faction in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament. Kirchner
opened by telling the crowd that they might want to invest in diapers, because
the “old parties” were so busy soiling their pants out of fear of the AfD,
there was likely be a national diaper shortage.
“When I see
what’s happening here in this country, what’s happening to the lead candidates
of a democratic party, the accusations that are being made against us, then I
have to honestly say that their pants are so full,” said Kirchner. He then
urged everyone to vote for AfD so the political establishment “gets the bill
for what they’ve done to this country, what they’ve done to the citizens and
what they’ve done to the Volk.”
Domestic
intelligence authorities in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, who are tasked with
monitoring anti-constitutional groups, have classified the state branch of the
AfD as a right-wing extremist organization — in part because its politicians
use terms like “invaders” and “intruders” to describe migrants. State party
leaders have called the extremist designation “defamation” and depict it as
part of the state conspiracy against them.
The
extremist classification never seemed to dissuade the party’s supporters. In
Saxony-Anhalt, the party is now polling second, just behind the conservative
CDU. Throughout much of eastern Germany, where the party is strongest, it holds
a lead in recent polls.
Kirchner
went on to tell a story about how, during the pandemic lockdowns, he had
compared the German government’s measures to East Germany’s repression — a
comment, he said, that had gotten the attention of domestic intelligence
authorities.
“That leads
to you being classified as a right-wing extremist?” Kirchner asked
rhetorically. He then doubled down on the comparison — suggesting the current
German government is even worse than East Germany and the Stasi, that regime’s
secret police.
“The Stasi
was bad, no question,” Kirchner said. “But what these guys are doing? Even the
Stasi wouldn’t have allowed it back then.”
‘They want to defame the AfD’
Over the
course of the rest of the evening, during a question-and-answer session, it
became clear that members of the crowd perceived Germany to be in an almost
apocalyptic state of decline.
“What are
our children learning?” asked one woman, who later gave her name only as
Bettina and said she’s a mother of eight children. “They are no longer taught
anything.”
The problem
starts, she added, “with masturbation rooms in kindergartens and the
unspeakable sexualization of children at an early age.” (Far-right media
postings in Germany have long spread disinformation about the alleged
prevalence of so-called “masturbation rooms” in daycare centers).
Another man
in the crowd, who had been taking meticulous notes all night, spontaneously
decried what he saw as the mainstream media campaign against the AfD, yelling
out: “It’s a game of mockery directed at the small citizen!”
Though it
was one of the biggest stories in the news at the time, the subject of Krah
barely came up. People in the crowd asked questions about taxes, migrants,
retirement payments.
Near the
end of the event, Bettina rose again to ask what the party would do to stop
German military support to Ukraine.
“A war in
Ukraine is not in Germany’s interest and German involvement in this war is not
in Germany’s interest at all,” said Reichardt. “It’s solely in America’s
geo-strategic interests.”
What he
found particularly hard to bear about the situation, he added, was how
Germany’s Greens — a group, as he called them, of “militarily untrained, former
conscientious objectors and whiners” — had become hawks when it came to
military support for Ukraine. He then targeted one long-haired Greens
politician in particular: Anton Hofreiter.
“He should
cut his hair before talking about the military!” People in the crowd whooped in
delight.
After the
event, several attendees said they believed that accusations against Krah were
concocted.
“We are
mistrustful and believe this state leadership and its journalists and their
media are doing this to bash the AfD in order to keep voters away,” said Gerald
Wolf, a retired neurobiology professor wearing an ascot.
Outside the
hall, Bettina, the mother of eight, took a drag from her cigarette and said
that, due to her upbringing in East Germany, she was skeptical of what the
state told her. (She, like others interviewed in Magdeburg, refused to give her
full name for fear of repercussions for making her views public.)
“You should
always ask the question: Who benefits from what is happening?” she said of the
accusations surrounding Krah. “If I don’t use my head and question it and allow
myself to be influenced, then I’m just as much a puppet as everyone else.”
A friend of
hers, a man with a pointy beard tied with an elastic band, then pulled up in a
white BMW decorated with political slogans, one of which said: “Financial
capitalism threatens the values of civilization.” They said they would both be
attending a rally the following day, on the square next to Magdeburg’s gothic
cathedral, an event Bettina described as “all about sovereignty” where people
can “talk about the coronavirus measures.”
“A war in
Ukraine is not in Germany’s interest and German involvement in this war is not
in Germany’s interest at all.” |
The next
day, hundreds of people attended the protest, which brought together an
assortment of marginal groups, many protesting NATO and military support for
Ukraine. Some demonstrators waived Russian flags, others blue flags with dove
designs on them.
Local AfD
politicians handed out brochures under a canopy that read: “Take your country
back.” Among them was Kirchner, who once again claimed the current German
government is employing East German-style repression.
“To get the
domestic intelligence agency on board for the election campaign so they can try
to discredit us, to infiltrate us and destroy us, I already had that with the
Stasi,” he said. This explains why the AfD is particularly strong among people
living in the former East Germany, he said. “They’ve seen it all before.”
One
supporter of the party, a large man who refused to give his name for “privacy
reasons,” concurred with the assessment, saying the investigations — including
the one against Krah — were all politically motived.
“I believe
it’s a witch hunt,” he said. “They want to defame the AfD.”
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