Europe's right-wing alliance kicks out Germany's AfD from the Parliament over controversial SS remarks.
"The European Parliament's Identity and Democracy Group has chosen to remove the German delegation, AfD, from their ranks immediately," they announced on Thursday.
The ID Group shared their reasons for the sudden change, stating, "We no longer wish to be associated with Maximilian KRAH, AfD's top candidate for the European elections."
In a questionable interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Krah, who had already been barred from appearing publicly by AfD, made controversial remarks about Nazi SS soldiers. His comments were as follows: "Before declaring someone a criminal, I need to know what they did. Of the 900 thousand SS men, there were certainly many farmers. Not all SS uniform wearers were criminals. I'll never say someone is automatically a criminal just for wearing an SS uniform."
The SS (Schutzstaffel) was a prominent military organization under Hitler, responsible for guarding concentration camps during World War II.
Marine Le Pen from the French National Rassemblement (RN) Party has disclosed plans to no longer share the same parliamentary group as AfD after the European elections next month.
AfD issued a statement on Wednesday acknowledging the "massive damage" caused to their party during their current campaign by Krah's comments. Krah was reported to have "taken full responsibility" for his statements and agreed to resign from the AfD's federal executive board with immediate effect.
CNN reporters James Frater in London, Nadine Schmidt in Berlin, and Barbie Nadeau in Rome contributed to this story.
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Source: edition.cnn.com
