AfD board: state association should kick Halemba out of party

Parties - AfD board: state association should kick Halemba out of party

The AfD party leadership is distancing itself from its Bavarian member of parliament Daniel Halemba. The 22-year-old is accused of incitement of the people, among other things. A party spokesperson announced on Tuesday that the federal executive committee had asked the Bavarian AfD state executive committee to initiate expulsion proceedings against Halemba.

"The decision goes even further than party expulsion proceedings," said party and parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel in Berlin. "Yesterday, the Bavarian state executive was asked to initiate expulsion proceedings against Mr. Halemba and to immediately revoke his membership rights." It will be seen how the Bavarian state executive will behave.

Internal investigations had been launched into the case, Weidel added. "And for us on the federal executive board, it was unanimous and absolutely clear yesterday that Mr. Halemba cannot remain a member of the AfD."

The move was justified on the one hand by violations of the party's rules, which had led to the admission of members in breach of the party's statutes in the run-up to two constituency meetings for the state elections in Bavaria. It also cited the "information available to date from the investigation by the Würzburg public prosecutor's office, including the use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations in the fraternity house of the "Prager Burschenschaft Teutonia zu Würzburg".

The party executive discussed the Halemba case in Berlin on Monday evening. The Würzburg public prosecutor's office is investigating the MP for incitement of the people and the use of symbols of anti-constitutional organizations. The 22-year-old student, who last lived in Würzburg, rejects the accusations. Halemba initially refused to comment on the party executive's decision on Tuesday.

The state executive of the AfD in Bavaria initially did not wish to comment on the request from Berlin. When asked, its chairman Stephan Protschka merely stated that the issue was on the agenda for the state executive committee meeting on Thursday.

Last week, it became known that the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been monitoring the Teutonia Prag fraternity in Würzburg, of which Halemba is a member, since the beginning of December. This also applies to the AfD as a whole party in Bavaria.

According to the public prosecutor's office in Würzburg, a guest book was confiscated from the fraternity's house during a raid in September. It contained the entry "Sieg Heil", signed with Halemba's name. In the room occupied by the 22-year-old, a printout of an SS order issued by SS chief Heinrich Himmler in October 1939 with a so-called double sigrune was discovered.

"The activitas of the Teutonia Prag fraternity in Würzburg is an object of observation by the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution," the Office for the Protection of the Constitution announced. There are sufficiently strong indications that the activities of the fraternity are directed against the free democratic basic order, it said.

The fraternity had stored propaganda material from the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement on its premises. In doing so, it had emphatically supported the right-wing extremist efforts of this movement. In addition, right-wing extremist music had been played in the fraternity house.