CALLING AFD A ‘NAZI PARTY’ RISKS PUSHING IT FURTHER TO THE EXTREMES, WARNS ITS CO-FOUNDER

The co-founder of the Alternative für Deutschland party has said he fears its portrayal as a new Nazi party could push it further to the extremes.

Dr Bernd Lucke, who quit the party over the direction it was taking, said the party could lose its ‘moderate voices’ if they felt stigmatised.

Speaking on GB News Dr Bernd Lucke said:

“Today’s AFD is a very different party from the party that I founded. I left the party almost 10 years ago due to its shift to xenophobic agenda on which it is campaigning now.

“In terms of the election yesterday, that was not completely unexpected, because there were three driving forces which were very important in East Germany and which went in favour of the AFD.

“First, there is the strong discontent with our governing coalition. Second, there is much unease about the uncontrolled immigration into Germany which is taking place.

“And third, in particular in East German states, and both states which were voting yesterday were East German states, there is a high degree of scepticism towards the support for Ukraine.

“On these three issues, the AfD campaigned successfully.

“I don’t know where the party will be going to; that very much also depends on how the party is being dealt with by, for instance, media and the other parties in Germany.

“Actually, I think there’s a very dangerous tendency that the more the party is portrayed as a Nazi Party, and that is currently the dominant saying, the greater is the danger that the party will become even more right wing.

“[I fear] the more moderate members of the party will be leaving such a party, for fear of being socially stigmatised for their AFD membership.

“That is a process which has actually been taking place already since the Party was founded.

“There was always a defamatory campaign against the party, but it is true that the party has voices which are xenophobic, which use language able to incite hatred against foreigners, that it is in some aspects at odds with values of our Constitution. So the portrayal is not completely unfair.

“On the other hand, it is never recognized that there are also many reasonable people in the AFD party, and that there are also reasonable positions that the party has.

“And this is probably why voters still feel that the AfD has to play a role in German politics.

“In particular, migration laws are completely dysfunctional in the European Union and Germany and the AfD points that out over and over again. That is not unreasonable to say, so that is probably one big reason why the party has such strong support.

“The important thing actually, is that we solve the problems: that we solve the problem with uncontrolled migration, that we solve our economic problems on which the current governing coalition in Berlin is not doing very well, that we solve the problem with Ukraine.

“Whether the established parties do that, or whether they need to be pushed to doing that by entering into some kind of agreement with the AfD is actually of second order importance.

“But the problem currently is that the established parties are unable to tackle this issue because they themselves, branching from the liberal conservative Christian Democratic Party to the very, very left, do not agree on the measures to be taken.

“And therefore, as long as they are opposed to forming any kind of coalition or cooperation with the AfD, they block themselves in the requirement to form a government which comprises very different opinions on how to tackle those issues.

“And therefore we don’t get any solutions.”