Germany news: Politicians call for ban on radical AfD state branches
Some German politicians have called for a ban on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party's more radical state branches. Follow DW for the latest.
High-ranking German politicians, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Baden-Württemberg's state premier Cem Özdemir, have urged swift legal proceedings to ban the most radical regional branches of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Their calls for bans focus on the party's clearly ethno-nationalist state branches in Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Brandenburg.
The duo emphasized the importance of distinguishing between various factions within the AfD, with Pistorius and Özdemir arguing that the more radical, ethnically based wing should be subject to legal scrutiny. They referred to this faction as "völkisch," a German term derived from "das Volk," meaning "the people." The völkisch movement was an ethno-nationalist movement preceding Nazism.
However, Green Party lawmaker Irene Mihalic cautioned against selective bans, stating that she believed the entire AfD is at odds with Germany's democratic constitution. Meanwhile, a British woman was stabbed to death at a railway station in southern Germany, with a 27-year-old German man detained at the scene. The incident occurred in Rosenheim, the third-largest city in Upper Bavaria.
For the first time since World War II, a far-right politician might become a state premier in Germany, as the AfD is leading in Saxony-Anhalt, where its candidate Ulrich Siegmund is particularly popular among young voters.
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